MLB News: New Findings Surface With Astros Sign Stealing Scandal

As if the memory of the World Series loss to the Astros doesn't sting enough for Dodgers fans a new report came out further discussing details of what has transpired. Dodgers fans haven't been afraid to let opponents who were part of the Astros team know how they really feel, but it would be hard for fans to target this during games.

In an article by The Athletic, it was discovered that Astros General Manager Jeff Luhnow had instructed one of his lieutenants, Bill Firkus, to give a heads up to others within the team that the MLB might potentially collect their devices for further information. 

Before finding this information, sources revealed the MLB interviewed several Astros employees on what message Luhnow delivered to Firkus and what Firkus relayed to others. 

Upon further investigation, Firkus initially spoke of deleting messages but would later recall that the word delete was never mentioned. There was enough evidence for the investigators to rule out any possibility of Firkus relaying multiple stories (quotes via Firkus in a statement). 

“I cooperated fully in the investigation and never discouraged anyone from doing the same."

After going through multiple people within the command chain and personnel, investigators ruled that the exact message from Luhnow to Firkus remain unknown, the MLB believes only one person deleted messages off their phone after the MLB had instructed that they would look over their devices. Luhnow.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred wrote a letter to Luhnow in regards to his recent discovery. 

“Your credibility is further impacted by the fact that you permanently deleted information from your phone and its backups in anticipation that my investigators would seek to search your phone. You did not tell my investigators that you had done this until they confronted you about it in your second interview."

Luhnow's explanation for deleting messages were in regards to sensitive photos of his wife he didn't want investigators to see, therefore he deleted the photos and then once it was backed up into his iCloud, he deleted it again. 

To the league's determination, the photos only accounted for a very small amount percentage of data that was deleted.