Red Sox pitcher Rick Porcello wants harsher PED penalties

There seems to be a perception among at least a portion of the general public that most baseball players are using something to cheat, but only some get caught. That may have been somewhat true at the height of the PED era in the mid-90’s to early-2000’s, but not anymore. Yet that stigma still lingers, which is what outrageous players like Porcello that are playing the game the right way. It’s unfair for them to have to compete against guys that are cheating, just as it’s unfair for some fans to question his integrity simply because they are skeptical of anyone in the game.

Porcello isn’t the only one voicing their opinion on the matter. His former teammate with the Detroit Tigers, Justin Verlander, has also been very outspoken against PED users.

According to an anonymous poll taken by ESPN in 2014, the players surveyed estimated that 9.4 percent of major league players are taking some sort of performance enhancing drug. That’s a steep drop from what that estimate would have looked like a decade earlier, but it’s still far too high, while there are still many fans that assume the percentage is even higher.

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MLB has made significant strides in cleaning up the game, but they still have work to do. With players like Porcello speaking up, perhaps this will lead to more changes to how the league handles these issues.