Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz have been on paid leave from the league since July after an investigation began into unusual betting activity in games they were participating in. The pair have just been indicted on charges of wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery and money laundering conspiracy.
If they’re convicted on all of the charges, they’ll face up to 65 years in prison. And according to a 23-page indictment from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, the pitchers received $12,000 apiece for their involvement in two games in June 2025. Ortiz threw pre-determined balls during June 15 and June 27 outings, with Clase helping arrange the scheme. Those games were Ortiz’s first activity in the pitching scheme; Ortiz allegedly had been conspiring periodically in MLB games since May 2023.
In total, Clase’s conspirators won over $400,000 in earnings and Ortiz’s amassed more than $60,000. The conspirators placed prop bets on the pitchers, who then intentionally threw balls so the bets would hit. The investigation discovered most of Clase’s rigged pitches were on the first pitch of the at-bat, generally well outside of the strike zone or spiked in the dirt.
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Journalist Pablo Torre noted a passage in the indictment where Clase tried to throw a ball, but the batter swung and missed, leading to a strike. Two people who had wagered $4,000 that Clase would throw a ball on that pitch lost their bets. About 20 minutes later, the unnamed “Bettor-I” sent a text to Clase of “a .gif image of a man hanging himself with toilet paper.” Approximately 10 minutes after the Guardians won the game, Clase replied to the text with “a .gif image of a sad puppy dog face.”
The indictment also stated Clase “sometimes provided money to the bettors in advance to fund the scheme.” He also received bribes and kickbacks from his conspirators. It’s likely he made more than the $12,000 officially listed in the document, but this surely wasn’t worth the risk.
Clase, 27, had become one of the best closers in all of baseball. He made multiple All-Star teams and was in the running for the Cy Young Award. He was due to make $6.4 million this upcoming season and had two additional club options on his contract before becoming an unrestricted free agent in 2029. Assuming the Guardians picked up his options — a likely outcome given how well he had pitched for them — Clase would have earned at least $38.1 million in his career.
And that’s before signing a deal in free agency. With how valuable strong, consistent closers are, Clase very easily could have reached nine figures in career earnings. But that’s off the table now, traded in for a paltry $12,000.
The Guardians traded for Ortiz last December. The 26-year-old hasn’t had as long of a career in Major League Baseball as Clase, though the starter has still made nearly $2.3 million in his career. He was set to earn $820,000 in pre-arbitration money, and the Guardians likely would have offered him a more significant long-term deal.
Instead, both players are out of baseball and facing significant jail time. Gambling rocked the NBA world last month, and now MLB has a major gambling concern to deal with. And with the major sports leagues embracing gambling sites as partners, this probably won’t be the last bombshell betting story we see.
