There’s little doubt that the Houston Astros are baseball’s Public Enemy Number One heading into 2020. With the team having been found guilty of cheating in 2017 en route to a world title, it’s widely expected that pitchers will be retaliating against them en masse.

This is a problem for MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. He chose not to punish any Houston players for their roles in the sign stealing scandal, and now there might be some vigilante justice on the way.

Right now, Manfred is making it clear that retaliation against Houston by throwing at their batters will not be tolerated. In a recent interview with ESPN, Manfred revealed that he intends to release a memo to the other 29 teams, warning that there will be increased punishments for hitting Astros players.

Via NYPost.com:

“We have been working on for some time a memorandum about being hit by pitches, intentionally throwing at batters,” Manfred told ESPN’s Karl Ravech. “It’s really dangerous, really a dangerous undertaking, and completely independent of the Astros investigation we will be issuing at the beginning of this week a memorandum on hit by pitches which will increase the ramifications of that type of behavior.”

Major League Baseball found the Astros guilty of using technology to read pitchers’ signs and then signal their batters. For their crimes, the Astros lost draft picks, receiving a fine, and saw their GM and manager suspended.

But beyond that, the Astros are not going to lose any of their ill-gotten gains, nor will any of their players be suspended.

Despite Manfred’s best efforts, don’t be surprised if we see some pitchers throwing at or behind the Astros in 2020.