The suspensions announced today are stunning. As are the penalties, essentially crippling the Astros’ ability to rebuild the franchise by taking away perhaps the best four possibilities to add quality talent (yes, we still have international money, but that’s less predictable). As an Astro fan of 40 years, this is one of the all-time dark days in the history of the franchise.
The most important repercussion from these announcements is the effective end of the Luhnow regime. Given how many quality front office people have left in the past few years (David Stearns, Mike Elias, Sig Megdal), there’s no obvious number 2.