HOUSTON — Carlos Beltran is stepping down as manager of the New York Mets after he and the team agreed to part ways.
Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports was the first the break the news Thursday morning. Brown reports that Beltran told the Mets that it would be best if he stepped down.
Both Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic and Jeff Passan of ESPN.com confirmed the report. Passan says Beltran is stepping down for his involvement in the Houston Astros sign-stealing scheme.
The Mets and Beltran released the following statements Thursday afternoon:
Beltran is the third baseball manager to lose his job in connection with the scandal.
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On Monday, former Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and former manager A.J. Hinch were both fired by team owner Jim Crane after MLB determined the Astros used a complex sign-stealing system during the 2017 season.
MLB suspended Hinch and Luhnow for the 2020 season, fined the Houston Astros $5 million and took away Houston's 1st and 2nd-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021.
On Tuesday evening, Alex Cora and the Boston Red Sox say they agreed to part way after Monday's news of MLB's investigation.
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Throughout the summary of findings MLB released Monday, Cora's name kept popping up. Cora was the bench coach for Houston in 2017 when the Astros won the World Series.
According to the report, Cora not only knew of the Astros sign-stealing scheme, but he was also instrumental in making it happen. The report says he was involved in both developing the banging scheme and using the replay room to decode and send signs.
Beltran's name came up in the report saying that two months into the 2017 season, he was among a group of players who discussed that the team could improve on decoding signs and sending the signs to the batter as part of the scheme.
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