Reds' Castellanos: MLB doesn't care about pitchers doctoring baseballs

Cincinnati Reds outfielder Nick Castellanos doesn't think Major League Baseball actually cares about eliminating foreign substances from baseballs used by pitchers.

"Is it illegal, or is it not illegal to put stuff on a ball?" Castellanos said on "The Chris Rose Rotation" Thursday. "It's illegal. The league obviously knows that they are doing it, but the league doesn't care. They don't care because if it was really a problem that they wanted, they would put people in the bullpen to check gloves, to check hats, whatever. The league would do something about it. But honestly, I don't think it's that important to them."

MLB has officially kept a closer eye on spin rates this season and confiscated baseballs used during games to determine if pitchers are doctoring them.

The league also informed team owners this week that enforcement will come due to the severity of the problem with foreign substances, sources told Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The specifics are unknown regarding how enforcement is going to be applied, and the league will reportedly follow a process that involves communicating with the players' and umpires' unions in addition to all 30 teams.

Miami Marlins infielder Miguel Rojas served as Rose's co-host Thursday and said it's becoming an uneven playing field.

"I wanna be short because I don't want to be talking about this too much because I get frustrated," Rojas said. "We've been hitting for so many years, right? Then we see something this year that the ball is doing so many different things that we're not accustomed to hit.

"We have to come to a point where everybody's doing the same thing. My problem is when more and more people are trying to search for something different that makes them better than other guys that are not working with the same stuff."

Entering Thursday, hitters league-wide were batting .236, which is an all-time low.

Despite batting average suppression and alleged widespread cheating by pitchers, Castellanos has thrived at the plate. The 29-year-old is batting .361/.416/.644 with 12 home runs in 48 games this season. He leads all qualified hitters in batting average, with the next closest being Reds teammate Jesse Winker (.341).