Gerrit Cole sidestepped questions of using various substances on the ball during a news conference. I did find his response to the Josh Donaldson allegations interesting (emphasis added):

To Donaldson’s comment, Cole said, “I kind of thought it was a bit of low-hanging fruit, but he’s entitled to his opinion, to voice his opinion. I have other things that I need to keep my focus on. Respectfully, I can’t worry about that type of stuff, but I would say that as a member of the Executive Council in the union, part of my job, part of my role here is to facilitate communication about really all things involving the game. I’m open to doing that.”

NYPost.com

I actually think MLB should throw this into the lap of the union. They could use the argument that pitchers who doctor the ball are taking money out of the pockets of not only honest pitchers, but the batters as well. The owners may care about this degrading the product on the field, but that takes money out of the pockets of players if it impacts revenue. Let the players figure it out.

Remember, there are reasons for batters to want the pitchers to have a good grip on the ball. Let Donaldson and Cole keep the debate inhouse, and the game might come up with a better solution than MLB making umps act like the secret police.