Gerrit Cole Brutally Accuses Half of MLB of Not Caring About Winning
By Max Scoli
The Houston Astros are currently sitting pretty atop the AL West with a 57-33 record, 7.5 games up on the second-place Oakland Athletics. Gerrit Cole has been a big reason for the organization's success, ranking among the league leaders in strikeouts (170) and WHIP (1.02) thanks to his speedy fastball.
But while the Astros have had a great season, there are a lot of team's sitting well below the .500 mark. And Cole thinks it's due to lack of effort. The Astros' ace blasted half the league with his recent comments, claiming that at least half the league doesn't care about winning.
Gerrit Cole: ‘At least 50 percent of the league doesn’t give a (bleep) about winning.’ There is player anger about what is perceived as prevalence of tanking.
— Alex Speier (@alexspeier) July 9, 2019
In today's game, non-contending teams opt to tank in hopes of building towards a stronger future, rather than compete throughout the year. They will offload key veteran players in order to stockpile young prospects and rid themselves of big contracts.
This has become all too common in the world of sports today, and takes away from the integrity of the game. But, like anything else, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred denies it.
Manfred on tanking: "It would be nice to start with the facts on this topic. There has been no meaningful change in the distributuon of winning percentage in Major League Baseball."
— Brenden Schaeffer (@bschaeffer12) February 17, 2019
"This narrative that our teams aren't trying just isn't supported by the facts."
We've seen it time and time again, when a team decides to blow up the roster and trade away their key players to contending teams. It becomes clear those teams have their sights set on the future, rather than winning ball games this season. Cole's clearly frustrated by the dip in competitiveness, though it doesn't seem like it's something that will change any time soon.