Miguel Cabrera supports AJ Hinch as Tigers manager, downplays Astros cheating scandal

When the Detroit Tigers hired AJ Hinch as their next manager, the team faced its fair share of criticism for bringing in a guy who was coming off a one-year league-wide suspension for his role in the Astros' infamous sign-stealing scandal. But Hinch's questionable past doesn't seem to bother Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera, who dismissed the idea that Houston's 2017 World Series shouldn't count because of the team cheating.

"That's bulls---," Cabrera told ESPN. "I don't care about that."

At the start of 2020, Major League Baseball revealed the results of its investigation, which showed that the Astros had created an elaborate system for stealing signs from other teams that would let hitters know which pitches were coming in advance. The league confirmed that this system was in place during Houston's championship season in 2017. 

As a result, the Astros fired Hinch as manager and the league suspended him for the 2020 season. Now he returns with the Tigers, and Cabrera seems to be fully on board with the team's new manager.

"He's a really smart guy, a passionate guy," Cabrera said. "He's an honest man, a very special man. He knows a lot about baseball. He has great communication with us. I don't care what they did in Houston. He [was] a big part of the success Houston had the last three to five years."