Rob Manfred doesn’t need to do anything further. The Astros title doesn’t need an asterisk either. In the eyes of the public, the damage has already been done to the Astros themselves. For a comparison, does anyone think of Bonds as having the single season home run record? If not him, do you think of McGuire, the previous record holder? Or do you still think of Roger Maris as being the true single season record holder? I don’t need an asterisk to tell me it’s Maris.
I find it laughable that other MLB players are complaining about this after the fact. There is no way in all of creation, that opposing players and coaches didn’t catch on to what the Astros were doing, when they played them. How come no one said anything before the former Astros whistleblower? Did no one file a report with MLB demanding an investigation before this former Astros whistleblower? If the Astros were banging on garbage cans, how could the umpires (besides players and coaches) not pick up on it?
What the Astros players did was clearly wrong. I also think taking performance enhancers was wrong too, but apparently the players felt differently since the only effect on them was basically increased salaries.
The problem with this scenario is that in your case, and my case as well, the steroid scandal is a recent incident. 50 years from now its going to be an answer for a trivia question, but if a youngster grabs a baseball record book, or if a graphic is displayed on a TV of all time home run leaders. Its still going to inform everyone that the record holder is Barry Bonds, with no mention of steroids and why we should disregard it.
Vacating the world series win is the right thing to do. This will shut everybody up and discourage any future behavior