In the wake of Major League Baseball levying significant penalties against the Houston Astros for electronically stealing signs at Minute Maid Park during the 2017 season, many players have chimed in with their thoughts on the investigation.
Cleveland Indians pitcher Mike Clevinger didn’t hold back and wonders how Astros players can look their opponents in the eyes this season. Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Alex Wood additionally compared Houston’s sign-stealing scandal to the steroid era.
While MLB recently asked the Dodgers as an organization to not comment on the situation, there is plenty of anticipation with regard to how the Astros might respond.
To this point, Astros players have passed on the opportunity to express regret for their actions. Dallas Keuchel, now with the Chicago White Sox, is the only member of the 2017 team to publicly apologize for the organization’s illegal sign-stealing activity.
When speaking to reporters at the team’s annual FanFest event, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman revealed the Astros haven’t personally apologized to him and that the organization hasn’t shown nearly enough remorse for electronically stealing signs.
“They have not,” Friedman said when asked if he received an apology. “In my personal opinion they have not [shown enough remorse].
“Again, I just haven’t spent much time thinking about it because it doesn’t do me any good. Whenever I find myself kind of wandering and thinking about it, it’s just frustrating. There’s absolutely nothing I can do. It was in the commissioner’s office’s hands and I thought they handled it well, and it’s something that from my standpoint, it’s just wasted energy and effort at this point because it’s taking away from something we can do to help make ourselves better in 2020.”
As for whether the Astros should be forced to vacate their 2017 World Series championship, Friedman wiggled around the question but admitted he would have handled things differently if he was in the position of MLB commissioner Rob Manfred.
“It’s not for me to say. Again, I’m selfish when it comes to this and just think about it from the Dodgers standpoint. As far as the commissioner, I would be wearing a different hat and thinking about things differently. Obviously they went through everything and determined what they did.
“For me, everything is about the Dodgers and thinking about it through that lens.”
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