Jeff Passan – ESPN: News later in the week cemented a lot of what Passan laid down here. The Houston Astros being punished for using electronic sign-stealing needed to happen. However, the punishment they received was not an actual deterrent to other teams doing the same. The entire situation ended with one person somehow remaining clear of all the muck, Astros owner Jim Crane. It’s pretty telling that nothing was laid at his feet while his number one foot soldier in Rob Manfred eviscerated the rest of the Astros organization.
Craig Goldstein – Baseball Prospectus ($): Baseball is a game and Major League Baseball is the highest level of that game. The game of baseball still exists in the real world and as much as some people may not like it it is still bound to the same ethics and morals as the rest of us. Just because those ethics can be circumvented doesn’t mean you should. Taking that path makes you part of the problem when it comes to the rot at the center of our society.
Michael Baumann – The Ringer: When the Boston Red Sox fired Álex Cora it was the equivalent of putting a band-aid on a gushing wound. Cora needed to be punished, but what the Red Sox did was an attempt to get out in front of the news cycle. Their ownership wasn’t interested in accountability or owning up to their own role in the sign-stealing Cora supposedly brought to their team. If MLB continues to be an organization devoid of ownership accountability then why should people keep giving their money to those very same owners?
Lead photo courtesy of Tim Bradbury – Getty Images
