While the country and the world were waiting with baited breath to see who would be president, two teams began the rehabilitation process of the 2017 Houston Astros.

First, the Detroit Tigers hired AJ Hinch to replace the recently retired Ron Gardenhire. Then, after a one year hiatus, the Boston Red Sox rehired Alex Cora.

This offseason all of the aghast and offended MLB teams will be pursuing free agents like George Springer, Josh Reddick, Brad Peacock, Charlie Morton, and others. Member after member of that organization has been or will be pursued. That even includes Jeff Luhnow who Alex Rodriguez was rumored to want as a member of the New York Mets front office.

Seemingly every MLB team is willing to cast outrage and morals aside for all of the 2017 Houston Astros. The one exception is Carlos Beltran.

As the narrative goes, the sign stealing saga was all Beltran’s doing. It didn’t matter that the Astros organization had to put the technology in place to aide and abet the players, and it didn’t matter an operation of this caliber truly needed top to bottom coordination. No, as it went, Beltran was THE driving force.

Undoubtedly, Beltran played a role, and it was very likely significant. The same goes for every player from that 2017 team who went unnamed. However, when it came to the retired Beltran, he wasn’t afforded the same anonymity. No, he was put out there with a target on his back.

People were all too happy to go out there and come after him. They demanded his firing even fully knowing it could very well mean the end for him in baseball.

The real shame was this came during the time of Beltran’s own redemption story. He was returning to the Mets to win that World Series he couldn’t. He was returning to the place where the owners not only challenged his worth but also tried to stop him from saving his career.

Unfortunately, Beltran was thrown another curve. Again, he was left standing there without taking a swing. For the second time in his life, he was out.

Only this time it seems like it is for good.

That is very clearly different than the fates of Hinch and Cora. It is different than the fates of his former teammates. In the end, Beltran is going to forever be the fall guy for what happened in 2017. In roughly two years, we’ll see if his punishment includes not being inducted into the Hall of Fame.

But for right now, Beltran is out of baseball with no discernible path to return. While you could justify this, it is difficult to ascertain why he’s being held to a much higher standard than every other member of that organization.