TEMPE, Ariz. — Mike Trout thinks the Houston Astros should pay more dearly for their cheating ways.
The Los Angeles Angels’ three-time AL MVP ripped the Astros and questioned the discipline handed out by Major League Baseball on Monday after he reported to spring training. Trout joined the chorus of prominent big leaguers angry about Houston’s rampant sign stealing on its way to the 2017 World Series title and beyond.
“It’s sad for baseball,” he said. “It’s tough. They cheated. I don’t agree with the punishments, the players not getting anything. It was a player-driven thing. It sucks, too, because guys’ careers have been affected. A lot of people lost jobs. It was tough.
“Me going up to the plate knowing what was coming? It would be fun up there. A lot of guys lost respect for some of the guys.”
Trout said a few members of the Astros reached out to him during the offseason to explain their side, but Trout didn’t sound impressed.
“You don’t know what helped them or what not,” he said. “But if you know what’s coming, it’s going to definitely help them. I don’t know if you take the trophy away or take the rings away, but they should definitely do something.”
Trout doesn’t remember hearing the Astros banging on trash cans at Minute Maid Park during his nine big league seasons, all with the Angels in the AL West.
“I noticed the banging off the bat from center field,” Trout said. “It just feels like they weren’t missing pitches. It’s frustrating, because you have guys coming in here battling every day and working on stuff. … I can’t imagine what the pitchers feel like. It’s a mental game. You go in a stretch where you’re doing good, and you go into Houston and get banged up, it could mentally drain you.”
RED SOX: J.D. Martinez has relied on video to analyze and adjust his swing before and during games. He’d hate to see the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal lead to the complete ban of in-game access.
“That’s who I am,” he said. “There’s going to be some restrictions. I think to go out there and take all video out and not be allowed to look at at-bats is a little ridiculous in my opinion.”
Since Martinez has been with the Red Sox, a member of the team’s staff would set up with his personal iPad outside the opposite side of batter’s box when Martinez was taking batting practice. Martinez would then take the device and retreat to the clubhouse to look at his swing. The team has been setting up an iPad for all players since Martinez was signed as a free agent during spring training in 2018.
YANKEES: Manager Aaron Boone was among around a dozen managers who met Sunday with Commissioner Rob Manfred.
“We won’t be in the business of going after or throwing at people on purpose,” Boone said. “We’ll just have to see how everything unfolds but I don’t expect it to be an issue for us.”
Boone plans to make sure that Yankees pitchers are not concerned about working inside.
“I think any of the penalties that come, it’s got to be 100 percent certainty that you know something is going on or you know something happened for certain because those things can be very grey,” Boone said. “One of the things I’ve been assured about from Major League Baseball is that if there’s a little grey to it then it’s going be kind of status quo.”
METS: Yoenis Cespedes arrived at spring training and was as silent as his bat has been for most of the past two seasons.
The New York Mets’ outfielder stepped back toward his locker as the media approached before the team’s first full-squad workout and said, “Not today, not tomorrow, not at all this year” when asked if he would talk.
A two-time All-Star, Cespedes said he felt no obligation to speak with the media. “Because I don’t want to,” he explained.
Cespedes turned his back to media, spritzed cologne on and forcefully put the bottle down in his locker.
Cespedes hit and ran but did not break with the outfielders as the horn sounded for the fielders to break into two groups when the Mets took the field for the first time in spring training.
Cespedes, 34, won a Gold Glove in 2015 and a Silver Slugger the following year. He has played in only 119 games in the first three seasons of a $110 million, four-year contract, just 38 since the end of the 2017 season.
BRAVES: Manager Brian Snitker and his coaching staff were given one-year contract extensions through the 2021 season.
Atlanta GM Alex Anthopoulos was extended for three years through the 2024 season and given the additional title of president of baseball operations.
The Braves have won back-to-back NL East titles under Anthopoulos and Snitker.
ASTROS: Pitcher Francis Martes was suspended for the 2020 season following his second positive test for a performance-enhancing substance under baseball’s major league drug program.
Martes tested positive for Boldenone, the commissioner’s office said. Boldenone is sold under the brand name Equipose and is used commonly on horses.
ARBITRATION: Backup infielder Aledmys Diaz went to arbitration with the Houston Astros, who offered the same $2 million salary he earned last year.
Diaz asked arbitrators Mark Burstein, Stephen Raymond, Gary Kendellen for a raise to $2.6 million.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
