Major League Baseball may be done punishing the Astros for their cheating scandal, but that doesn’t mean that MLB players are going to be quiet.
The latest player to put Houston on blast is, ironically, a player whose new manager was at the heart of the Astros sign-stealing scheme. Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman took to Twitter and slammed Houston after video surfaced of a game in August of 2017, when he was still with Toronto.
In that game, which was played in Houston, Astros hitters combined for two runs and 11 hits against Stroman. The video also includes clearly audible sounds of the now infamous garbage can banging noise that the Astros used to let their players know when an off-speed pitch was on the way.
Stroman recalled how puzzled he was at how the Astros knew to lay off some of his more “nasty pitches.”
It is true, that several Astros players who were active on social media and prominent in MLB’s youth movement have gone quiet since MLB handed down their list of punishments last week. Most notably, no Astros players were punished despite MLB’s contention that the sign-stealing system was a “player driven” scheme.
Astros General Manager Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch were suspended for their parts in the scheme, and then subsequently fired by Astros Owner Jim Crane. In addition, MLB took the team’s first and second round picks in 2020 and 2021. The Astros were also fined $5 million, the maximum allowable amount under MLB’s constitution.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn