Emmanuel Clase, Luis Ortiz arrests show fragility of baseball's integrity
Cleveland Guardians pitcher Emmanuel Clase during a game against the San Francisco Giants in San Francisco on June 17. Credit: AP/Jeff Chiu
LAS VEGAS — With two pitchers probably headed for perp walks outside a New York courthouse in the near future because of gambling allegations, some of MLB’s brightest stars will be strutting along the red carpet later this week for the network-televised end-of-season awards show.
Broadcast from the Cosmopolitan Hotel and Casino. Presented by MGM Awards.
We’re old enough to remember when Las Vegas was strictly off limits to any of the big four professional sports leagues. The reason was blatantly obvious. Protecting the integrity of the game was paramount, and even the mere perception of any outcome being rigged was too much to risk — never mind such a nefarious plot actually happening.
Now there are very few guardrails left. The NHL, NFL and WNBA already have set up shop on the Strip, with MLB scheduled to follow with the A’s in 2028, when the move from Sacramento finally will become a reality. And if installing these franchises at gambling’s ground zero wasn’t enough, the leagues rushed into lucrative business partnerships with the most powerful sportsbooks, helping to extend their digital reach far beyond the traditional boundaries.
There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle, and we’re only at the very early stages of assessing the long-term damage of making smartphone betting as easy as ordering an Uber. But sirens are going off, and MLB got a very loud wake-up call with Sunday’s federal indictment of Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz for rigging pitches as part of a larger prop-bet conspiracy.
The charges against the two Guardians relievers claim they took bribes in order to throw certain pitches, as dictated by the bets involved, with a payoff of at least $460,000 to gamblers from the Dominican Republic.
On the surface, such a scheme almost seemed foolproof. How could anyone prove a pitcher deliberately threw a pitch out of the strike zone? Or spiked one in the dirt? Or registered a certain velocity?
Apparently, the FBI believes it can, and now Clase — one of MLB’s top closers — and Ortiz potentially face decades in prison. We’ll assume a lifetime ban from baseball is on deck as well, but no penalty can reverse the damage that’s already been done.
And will the extent of that damage ever be truly known, or just how much Clase or Ortiz possibly impacted other games in other ways?
U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. told The Associated Press that Ortiz and Clase “betrayed America’s pastime” and added, “Integrity, honesty and fair play are part of the DNA of professional sports. When corruption infiltrates the sport, it brings disgrace not only to the participants but damages the public trust in an institution that is vital and dear to all of us.”
No kidding. This is not a new concept. It's why Pete Rose isn’t in Cooperstown (for now). What is new, however, is the degree to which sports leagues are willing to compromise these principles for piles of cash. Look no further than MLB’s response to the Clase/Ortiz scandal.
Rather than just take these micro-bets off the board, which would eliminate the problem altogether, MLB announced Monday that it will cap pitch-level markets at $200 and exclude those bets from multi-wager parlays (that significantly multiply payoffs).
We get the logic. By substantially shrinking the gain, it’s no longer worth the risk for players, so that loophole would appear to be closed.
“Since the Supreme Court decision opened the door to legalized sports betting, Major League Baseball has continuously worked with industry and regulatory stakeholders across the country to uphold our most important priority: protecting the integrity of our games for the fans,” commissioner Rob Manfred said Monday in a statement. “I also commend the industry for working with us to take action on a national solution to address the risks posed by these pitch-level markets, which are particularly vulnerable to integrity concerns.”
Maybe MLB, in cooperation with its sportsbook partners, was able to successfully put out this fire. But the perception lingers, and who’s to say where the next blaze will pop up?
Manfred repeatedly points to vigilant monitoring as the most effective safeguard, but that’s still only catching the criminals after the fact. And every Clase/Ortiz incident puts another dent in the sport’s valued integrity, which isn’t what it used to be. Or at least until a price tag was put on it.
That doesn’t mean MLB embracing Vegas necessarily undermines the game. Neither does handing out awards in casinos or having the general managers’ meetings amid blackjack tables and slot machines.
But integrity is a fragile thing. Once that breaks, there’s no repairing it. And the cracks from this new frontier of gambling are beginning to show.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
