For the Astros, it wasn't just one guy corking his bat or something. Houston had stadium personnel mount those cameras in the outfield, and hooked them up to monitors in the dugout that couldn't be seen by the casual observer. When an opposing player spotted the monitor in the Astros dugout, the team took it down right away to avoid any unwelcome attention from the umpires. Someone in the dugout had to be watching the monitor, and relay what he saw to some guy banging on a garbage can, the bangs signaling to the batter what the pitch was. This was the whole organization coordinating the cheating.
Yeah, you still have to hit the ball and score runs, but when one team piles up an additional two or three runs a game, it makes it that much more difficult to prevail. Playing from behind in the late innings is significantly different from playing with a lead. Everyone knew that Mariano Rivera was going to throw that cut fastball of his, but when the batter is pressing, that really good pitch becomes that much more effective.
The light punishment doled out to the Astros tells me that the owners aren't concerned with the integrity of the game.
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