Monte Poole and I were talking about Bartolo Colon on Comcast the other night. Monte said, for drug penalties to have real meaning, MLB also should penalize the teams. I agreed and I agree. Right now, teammates tacitly condone drug cheaters. If they don’t condone them, they sure don’t condemn them. They see cheaters as aiding their own careers and aiding the team. After the Colon fiasco, Billy Beane and Bob Melvin talked matter of factly about losing him — these things happen, we have to pull together yadda yadda yadda. They might have been talking about some player who got injured, that’s how commonplace drug suspension have become — they are part of the landscape.

But if you take away wins from the team — I don’t know how many — for drug guys who get suspended, the culture on the team changes. Now players would condemn drug cheaters because they hurt the whole team. There would be pressure to play it straight.

If baseball is serious about stopping drug cheaters it will penalize teams.