Carlos Beltran was the only player named in Major League Baseball’s report on its investigation into illicit sign-stealing by the Houston Astros in 2017, and that was for a reason.
The report, which was released on Monday and has led to the firing of three people, indicated that virtually all of the Astros’ players were involved in, or at least aware of, the scheme to tell batters which pitches would be coming from opponents.
But according to a person with direct knowledge of the investigation who requested anonymity to discuss details that had not been made public, Beltran was named because he was a central figure at the outset of the operation, in which electronic equipment was used illegally to steal the opposing catchers’ signs.
A.J. Hinch, the Astros’ manager, Jeff Luhnow, Houston’s general manager, and Alex Cora, the Boston Red Sox manager who was a bench coach for the Astros in 2017, all lost their jobs as a result. Cora was let go by the Red Sox on Tuesday night, one day after the Astros owner Jim Crane fired Hinch and Luhnow.
M.L.B. also suspended Hinch and Luhnow from baseball until the end of the 2020 World Series. Cora has not been punished yet by M.L.B. because the league is still investigating his behavior as the manager of the Red Sox in 2018. That investigation is separate from the Astros probe and expected to take a few weeks.
Beltran’s case is different, but still presents a thorny situation for the Mets, who hired him on Nov. 1 to be their next manager.
Even though the investigation found that Beltran was intimately involved in the sign-stealing scheme, he will not face any penalty from M.L.B. because he was a player on the 2017 Astros. Rob Manfred, the M.L.B. commissioner, elected not to punish him or any of the other players in return for their cooperation in the investigation. Beltran was said to have been forthright with investigators, according to the person with knowledge of the inquiry.
M.L.B. also said in its statement that it would have been “both difficult and impractical” to punish the players because they were not in official leadership roles at the time, unlike Hinch, Luhnow and Cora. The report cited a 2017 memo in which Manfred warned teams that managers and general managers would be held accountable for any electronic sign-stealing.
The Mets declined to comment to The New York Times, and Beltran also did not respond to a request for comment.
Therefore Beltran, even though he is a manager now, could slip through unscathed by league punishment. The Mets, however, could still decide to impose some form of punishment of their own. Pressure to do so could mount in the coming days based on how the Astros and the Red Sox responded to the suspensions of their managers.
It could be awkward to have Beltran managing the Mets without consequence when Cora and Hinch — who was far less involved in the scheme than Beltran was — have both been suspended and fired.
The Mets have another, more basic issue — their own decision-making. After Beltran was hired, the Mets announced a plan to transfer the ownership of the team from their three primary executives — Fred Wilpon, Saul Katz and Jeff Wilpon — to Steve Cohen in a process that is supposed to be completed in no more than five years. It is not known when Cohen will move into a more prominent role in the decision-making process, or what his feelings on Beltran are.
In November, Beltran told The New York Post that he had not been involved in the Astros’ scheme. That has now been contradicted by M.L.B.’s findings. The league’s report said that Beltran, who was in his final year as a player in 2017, was at least a consultant in the affair.
“Approximately two months into the 2017 season, a group of players, including Carlos Beltran, discussed that the team could improve on decoding opposing teams’ signs and communicating the signs to the batter,” the report said.
But Beltran was more than just a typical player. He turned 40 that year, and was in his final season of a 20-year career worthy of Hall of Fame consideration when he is eligible in 2022.
He was an influential and respected leader on the 2017 Astros and, according to the person with knowledge of the investigation, he was closely involved, along with Cora, in the initial setup of the scheme. It is not clear whether he was a part of the day-to-day execution of the plan.
Beltran, who spent the 2019 season as a special adviser with the Yankees, is also known as an expert at stealing signs through the more traditional, and legal, methods — without the assistance of electronics. Those include spying on catchers while on the basepaths and then relaying their signals to the batter with subtle gestures.
M.L.B. officials felt some level of understanding for younger players who may have been coerced into participating or did not understand the implications of the scheme, and thus they decided against naming them. But that sympathy did not apply to a veteran like Beltran who helped orchestrate the plan.
Still, Beltran was technically a player, and for that reason he escaped league sanctions. Anything more is up to the Mets.