Yankees Slugger Latest to Lash Out Against Astros

Aaron Judge isn't a happy camper.

Aside from the fact that Judge is starting Spring Training on the mend with a shoulder ailment that has kept the Yankees slugger from hitting the baseball in camp, Judge joined a long list of players around Major League Baseball who have lashed out against the Houston Astros and the Sign Stealing Scandal.

Judge said the Astros should be stripped of their World Series title in 2017, and players should be punished for their involvement in the scandal.

Last month Major League Baseball came down hard on the Astros, suspending manager A.J. Hinch and General Manager Jeff Luhnow, finning the 'Stros and stripping them of first round picks for several years.

The Astros took it a step further firing Hinch and Luhnow. Soon thereafter word came down that Alex Cora, then a bench coach with the Astros, and Carlos Beltran, a bench player for Houston in 2017, were the key cogs in orchestrating the scandal. Both Cora, the manager of the Boston Red Sox and Beltran, the manager of the Mets, were fired by their respective teams before Spring Training began. Baseball is expected to punish the Red Sox for their "cheating"during the 2018 season.

Still a lot of players feel MLB commissioner Rob Manfred didn't do enough. Remember, Manfred granted the players on the Astros immunity through the Player Association. Yet, a lot people feel that Manfred dropped the ball in not targeting players like Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman who clearly benefited from the Astros sign-stealing ways of the past three seasons.

"To hear you got cheated out of that opportunity, that's tough to kind of let go," Judge told reporters. "I really didn't like the punishment. I thought it was a little weak for a player-driven scheme, that no players involved got any punishments."

All true. The Astros' players should have been punished. But let's just say for the sake of argument that Manfred did indeed punish players, would these same players around Major League Baseball chastise the commish for not having their backs because he didn't grant immunity? Keep in mind such a move would not have had the support of the Players Union.  And then there are the rumors and reports that there were other teams who were conducting similar sign-stealing tactics like the Astros.

The Red Sox, we know are going to get punished, but keep in mind the Yankees twice employed the man who was considered the "Godfather" of the scheme: Carlos Beltran. At some point in Beltran's career he had to develop and fine-tune the skills to cheat. Before joining the Astros in 2017, Beltran played for the Yankees for three years. Did he learn that skill in the Bronx? How about St. Louis or San Francisco? Or even the Mets?

And remember the Yankees hired Beltran as an assistant to the General Manager in 2018, a position he held for two years. So to say the Yankees aren't culpable in this matter is being disingenuous.

Bottom line is this, like the steroid era, the Astros were the ones who were caught. And just because they were caught doesn't exonerate the entire sport for similar culpability.

Players throught they could gain an upper hand with HgH and steroids. They thought they could gain an upper hand by using technology to cheat. They will come up with something else. They always do.