Angels' Taylor Cole Calls Out Astros for Sign-Stealing Scandal and Casts Doubt on Buzzer Denial on Instagram

Few individuals in baseball outside the Houston Astros organization are content with simply moving on from the sign-stealing scandal. Players throughout the league have expressed their anger and frustration at the lack of punishment from the league and the lack of accountability from the team.

Los Angeles Angels reliever Taylor Cole made clear his own frustration on Instagram. His problem has to do with former Astros manager AJ Hinch not denying that certain players wore buzzers under their uniforms.

View this post on Instagram

After listening to this interview with AJ Hinch, the former manager of the Astros, I couldn’t help but wonder why when asked about whether the team used buzzers this past season that he didn’t answer with a clear cut “no”. Instead he mentioned that Major League Baseball did an investigation and found nothing. I believe the MLB needs to further the investigation into the buzzers. Every player I’ve talked to believes they were using them, not to mention all the reports that have come out on it. In the interview, Hinch said he hit the monitors with a bat in two separate situations indicating he wasn’t okay with it, but never had a team meeting about it and never told the guys to stop when he heard the banging in the dugout of the relaying of signs. Doesn’t sound like someone that was wanting this to stop as he was benefiting in a major way while players jobs were being derailed and families lives affected. One year seems like a nice bargain if you ask me. *Mike Bolsinger has become the fist pitcher to sue the Astros after his career was cut short after giving up 4 runs against them. I was the pitcher called up for him that day when I made my debut in 2017. I remember him handling it with class. I’ve seen first hand the affect this has had on players and families. I also have reason to believe it happened in the Astros minor league system as well which is never talked about. Last year in Houston I had the worst outing of my career and gave up 7 runs in one inning. I was sent down to the minor leagues after that. Think twice before believing they weren’t cheating in 2019 as well.

A post shared by Taylor Cole (@tayjcole) on Feb 10, 2020 at 5:58pm PST

Cole mentions the rough outing he had in Houston last season. He is not alone as plenty of other pitchers are left wondering how their careers may have been different if bad outings against the Astros, who were cheating, never happened.

Angels reliever Taylor Cole had some interesting things to say about the division rival Astros’ sign stealing and alleged use of buzzers.

Taylor Cole in 5.2 career IP at Minute Maid Park: 9 ER allowed. (9 ER allowed in 13.1 career IP vs. HOU) https://t.co/fivvp3JcCv pic.twitter.com/OHIIiREjsz
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) February 11, 2020

Cole called Hinch out for claiming to not approve of the sign-stealing, only to allow it to continue. In the meantime, opposing players were having their careers impacted because the Astros knew what pitches were coming.

This post from Cole shows that this issue is not going to magically go away the way the Astros hoped it would. MLB's punishment was severe, but quite frankly not enough to satisfy opposing players whose lives were changed forever thanks to the scandal. That much is fair.