Ex-Houston Astros GM Jeff Luhnow Speaks Out On Sign Stealing Scandal

When the Houston Astros went down for cheating, General Manager Jeff Luhnow was one of the first dominos to fall. After nearly a year of having his name disgraced and dragged through the mud, Luhnow is ready to tell his story.

Luhnow recently sat down with Vanessa Richardson of Houston’s KPRC for his first interview since being fired for his role in the cheating scandal. There were many takeaways from the 37 minute long interview.

First things first, Jeff Luhnow claims he’s innocent. This should come as no surprise.

“The very first interview I had with Major League Baseball all the way until today. And when you’re telling the truth, it’s pretty easy to be consistent because you’re just recounting what happened,” Luhnow said. “And if I go through all of my behavior, all of my actions, they’re consistent with someone who tells the truth and they’re also consistent with someone that didn’t know.”

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Not only does Luhnow claim that he never knew anything about the Astros sign-stealing, but he also claims that there were efforts from team employees to hide the operation from him. He recalls sifting through text messages with team employees who were collaborating together to create the sign-stealing scheme.

“…After the investigation was over and I was fired, I got access to about 22,000 text messages that were from personnel in the video room. And it was clear from those messages that they were communicating back and forth about the rule violations. They were aware of the Red Sox and Yankees rule violations, they were aware it was wrong, and they also were using text messages to cheat on the job. They were communicating signs, and this was to coaches, to people in the video room. It’s all there in black and white. And what’s also clear from it is who’s not involved. I’m not implicated. I’m not in any of those text messages. In fact, there’s a few text messages where they say ‘Don’t tell Jeff,” Luhnow recalled.

Will Jeff Luhnow Get His Redemption?

He went on to say that some of the workers involved in the elaborate scheme are still working in the Astros organization.

I don’t know whether to believe Luhnow or not, but the timing of his comments seem a little peculiar. He waited 9 months to share this whole story, and why? Why wait for the dust to settle a bit if you truly are innocent? If I had to guess (and thank god I don’t), Luhnow knew about the sign-stealing. He may have had no role in the operation, or turned his cheek, but I bet he knew something was up.

What I took from the commissioner’s report about the Astros was that cheating was a part of the culture in Houston. It surrounded the entire organization. It was an obsession. For the General Manager (a guy who is around the team at all times) to claim that he knew nothing about it, seems like a reach to me. But who knows? Maybe they really did cover it up from Luhnow. We’ll probably never know.

As for what’s next for Jeff Luhnow? He claims he’d like to get back into sports. He thinks his talents stretch beyond baseball, too.

“Could I do it again? Yeah, I could do it again. Is it something I want to do? It depends. It would depend on the owners. I was not expecting to be treated the way I was treated at the end by the owners of the Astros. If I trusted the owners and the team had potential, and I wanted to do it again, I know I could. I’m good at it. I’ve been doing it for a while. But at the same time, I’m taking a hard look at the NFL, at the NBA, little bit at NHL, I didn’t grow up around hockey so that one’s a little tougher, E-Sports, soccer, both in our continent and in Europe,” Luhnow said. “And what I realized is that the opportunity to apply business practices and analytics and technology and to really modernize a sports organization the way I helped modernize the Cardinals and the Astros, that exists in every sport. So my skills aren’t stuck in baseball. I could easily transfer them to another sport, so I’m considering all my options at this point. There’s some projects I’m currently working on, some projects I have been working on, and I’m hopeful in the next couple of months… I mean, at some point, I’ll have to get a job. So we’ll figure something out.”