What do you suggest without completely gutting an entire organization? A year long suspension to their manager and GM(and eventual firings) is pretty steep. They could start suspending players, but that would open up a huge can of worms with the Players Association and I doubt it would be easy to figure out who was most involved in all of this mess.
Loss of draft picks and the slot money associated with each pick is a pretty harsh deterrent too, but those effects won’t be felt for many years(if ever).
Thing is you're right about suspending players starting a war with the Players Association. That's not a route I'm really in favor of. As for your statement of the effects not being felt if ever is on point as well. It's less for me about "punish them now" as it is that they need to exercise enough of a variety that is actually going to stop the issue. If all teams are gonna do is have to fire their GM and manager, lose 4 picks and $5 million they'll take that risk all day. If you really... REALLY want to discourage a team like the Sox from cheating you impose lifetime bans so that no one will actually do it. And if you ACTUALLY want to cripple them you just take away their free agency rights and they'll hit the basement in no time. Teams like that may find a manager crazy enough to risk a lifetime ban but they won't risk losing. You could tell me right now that the Yankees are gonna analyze everything the Astros did and say "We're gonna do what they did but do it better and not get caught" and I'd be about as surprised as if you told me you're gonna breathe and blink in the next few minutes.
I guess it boils down to that I want it out of the game. Believe me, I am an enormous believer in not overkilling discipline. Example: my 10 year old (at the time) step-daughter gets in a fight at school. Some parents would freak out. I didn't even so much as raise my voice and after checking on if she was okay and a little "Fights are gonna happen sometimes. Don't get too worked up. But you know fights are not okay and this can't happen again." I say "I'm going to have to talk to your teacher about this to make sure you and that girl apologize. I won't punish you here because if you get one at school too you're not gonna get a break. And if you don't get one at school I trust you'll learn. If you do it again then I won't go easy on you. Alright, let's get a snack. How was the rest of your day?"
I'm that guy and I'm asking that the Astros be made a MUCH bigger example of and the equivalent of had I turned over over my knee, walloped her ass, took her phone and dinner and made her do chores for a week to earn it back. Cheating to win a title like that is NOT okay especially when all it takes to get permabanned by MLB is to bet on games
