Braves starter Mike Foltynewicz has paid close attention to what’s unfolding with the Astros, the franchise that drafted and developed him as a prospect.
The Astros' cheating scandal has rocked baseball, compromising the integrity of the game and leading to several dismissals and punishments for those who are or were involved with the franchise. Foltynewicz was raised in the organization before he was dealt to the Braves in January 2015 and his ties have made the situation even more intriguing — and disgusting — to him.
“I could stand here another hour and talk to you about that situation,” Foltynewicz said. “But I don’t know what to say about that right now. All I can tell you is yeah, I’ve paid attention to that big time.”
“I think, as more and more comes out, this is one of the worst things to happen in Major League Baseball. You don’t realize how many people you hurt, not just players, but front offices, managers, coaches, even scouts. You have people second-guessing these scouts if a player is out there getting lit up.
“All the little things that people don’t see because they’re worried about the bigger picture right now, but I hope one day we can sit down and talk about it more because there’s so much to say and think about, especially as stuff keeps coming. I hope it all gets settled at the end of the day because it’s pretty sad.”
When asked about the report that catcher Brian McCann, who spent his final MLB season with the Braves in 2019, tried to stop the malpractice, Foltynewicz offered a lengthy, emotional answer that expanded into his full thoughts on the events.
“My wife and I were reading all that stuff (about McCann and other players). You see the articles. It’s just hard to trust anybody. It’s very, very hard to trust anybody. I don’t want to talk about any single person right now. The facts haven’t really come out (fully). … At the end of the day, it’s just very, very hard to trust any single person who’s been on that team ’17-19, front office, whatever, when they come out and talk in these interviews like that. Hopefully honesty comes out since it’s already the situation it is. … We’re all just going to assume every person took part in it.
“I hope people try to — they say they tried to stop it, whatever — but if we don’t know all the information, we’re going to assume ‘17-19 season, home and road stuff went down, it’s very easy for these guys to put the ball in play when they know what’s coming. Even if you see errors happen, bloop hits, whatever it may be on the field, these guys are good enough as it is when they don’t know what’s coming to put the ball in play.”
“So when they do know what’s coming, that’s just video game stuff on the easiest level. You’re beating teams 100-0. It was very sad to see.”
“Every time more information comes out I get a little shaky just because it’s the beautiful game we grew up watching, dreaming to play. It just sucks to see it unfold like this. They were a great team as it was anyways. … That division, being on that team and playing with some of the guys, it’s tough. You sleep on it and you come back and look at things. … It was sketchy. That’s all I have to say. But hopefully people will be honest so we can get all these troubles out of the way.”
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