Houston Astros Dismiss Team Manager, General Manager Over Sign-Stealing Scandal

Houston Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, shown here during the 2019 World Series, has been fired by team owner Jim Crane.

By Merrit Kennedy

January 13, 2020

Updated at 3:45 p.m. ET

The owner of the Houston Astros announced Monday that he is dismissing the baseball team's general manager, Jeff Luhnow, and manager, A.J. Hinch, over an elaborate sign-stealing scheme during the 2017 and 2018 seasons.

Shortly before owner Jim Crane's announcement, Major League Baseball Commissioner Robert Manfred had said the league was suspending Luhnow and Hinch for the 2020 season without pay.

"Today is a very difficult day for the Houston Astros," Crane said at a news conference at Houston's Minute Maid Park. "We accept the decisions and findings and penalties."

He said dismissing Luhnow and Hinch was "going above and beyond the MLB's penalty," adding that "we need to move forward with a clean slate."

The league also ordered the Astros to pay a fine of $5 million — the highest amount allowable under league rules. And the team will forfeit its first- and second-round selections in the 2020 and 2021 player drafts.

An MLB investigation found that Crane was not aware of the team's rules violations.

The team used a number of methods to steal signs, according to the commissioner's statement. In perhaps the most most brazen example, several months into the 2017 season, the players and staff involved would use camera footage from center field to decode signs from the opposing team about what pitches were coming. Then, according Manfred, "a player would bang a nearby trash can with a bat to communicate the upcoming pitch type to the batter."

It wasn't particularly hidden. "Witnesses made clear that everyone proximate to the Astros' dugout presumptively heard or saw the banging," Manfred said.

Investigators did not find that the team continued the banging scheme into the 2018 season. "However, the Astros' replay review room staff continued, at least for part of the 2018 season, to decode signs using the live center field camera feed, and to transmit the signs to the dugout through in-person communications," Manfred said.

The Astros former bench coach, Alex Cora, was involved in developing the banging scheme and setting up the electronic surveillance. Cora now manages the Boston Red Sox.

The scheme was first described by reporters Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich in The Athletic.