[Drellich] Emmanuel Clase wants to pitch in Venezuela while under MLB investigation, but Guardians say no
Reliever Of The Year twice in 3 years. Why the fuck did he decide to destroy his career with all that talent?
Because gambling is a hell of a drug and gambling addicts think they are smart enough to beat it. Sad shit.
The fact you all still don’t understand gambling scandals like this is astonishing
Clase himself probably did not do the betting. Someone probably asked him “hey, if you spike the first pitch in your appearance we’ll give you a cut” and he spiked the first pitch to get a cut. These things are detected because a large amount of money gets unexpectedly put on a betting line, which Clase is almost assuredly not doing by himself.
I mean he also apparently partnered with one of these player investment apps which is really weird for a player about to get their big bucks contract. Kinda screams he needed a big cash infusion right now, which would make sense if he was down a lot money from gambling
I see people try and tie this in all the time but I don’t really buy it. If I’m remembering correctly he “sold” a tiny piece of his future earnings at a rate where the break even point was ~$80M. Just doing the math I think anyone should’ve taken the deal, especially as a reliever. If he got hurt or something, better to get some money, and if he does make it to the big contract he’s still getting over 99% of it.
Or he’s from a poor family from a poor country and arb money doesn’t go as far as people think sometimes. 10 million is a lot but it’s not as much after taxes and then you’re expected to provide for your extended family.
I’m not trying to defend him or condone illegal gambling practices I’m just trying to explain what probably happened and why he would do it, because I find it unlikely that he’s just a gambling addict.
So just to be clear your assertion is that at minimum several million dollars “isn’t much” in the DR…?
That’s not what i said. Idk what his financial situation is, idk what his family situation is. I’m saying it’s not as much as the 10 mil number seems at first.
I promise you a few million USD is plenty of money in the DR.
It is on paper but keep in mind that rich baseball guys in the DR have services, housing, etc designed specifically for them that comes at a very non-DR price. Their kids go to special schools, they travel with security, homes like fortresses, etc. Your groceries might be cheaper but you’re paying someone to buy them for you. And your families also need protection and DR families tend to be big. Also keep in mind that money is made in the US and your agent + taxes are taking half of it before it even gets in your hands.
It’s not excusing Clase for anything to put the situation under a microscope a bit, the DR is an extremely shady country and not a good place for a millionaire to be caught outside
I mean he was probably earning 2.4 million post tax. 400 grand can probably take care of a decent amount of people in luxury in the DR. The amount he got from that finlete deal is peanuts compared to that
This called “match-fixing”.
This one’s tricky though because he didn’t fix the match. Assuming he is guilty, he intentionally threw a few balls that most likely had no effect on the outcome of the game. Its kind of weird because although it messes up the integrity of gambling it doesn’t really mess up the integrity of the game.
It absolutely messes with the integrity of the game. Go look at the hitting stats after an 0-1 count vs an 1-0 count.
With Clase’s splits the differences is very modest and there are lots of confounding variables. For example, batters hit well over .300 on the first pitch, and they are a lot less likely to be hitting a pitch that’s out of the zone; you may be more careful with better hitters so you are more likely to go 1-0; A guy who is overmatched is more likely to go 0-1 and also more likely to end up with an unproductive at bat. Its a hard case to make.
It would be interesting to see the outcomes of the at bats in question, since if he got a guy out–which is his job–he couldn’t have gotten them more out by throwing strike one.
Where are you getting Clases splits specifically? For the league the wOBA is almost .100 better after an 1-0 count than a 1-0 count. Clase isn’t going to be so significantly different than the league that it wouldn’t matter if it was 1-0 or 0-1.
Baseball Reference.
And keep in mind that all the confounders I mentioned apply to the league as a whole. Treating the outcome of the first pitch as random is obviously not correct.
Not only that, he probably thought he’d never get caught.
Who the hell pays attention to bets on one pitch from Clase? How much money could there be to make off that in the first place? If they don’t like it, just stop offering those bets.
The Vegas casinos do, for one, when a large bet comes in on one side of an obscure bet. Jontay Porter did something similar on a prop bet in the NBA and the casinos informed the league about the suspicious activity. The casinos like having a good relationship with the league.
And beyond just having a good relationship with the league, the casinos make a lot of money from sports betting.
Their bottom line relies on the average person believing the average game isn’t somehow fixed and being willing to bet on it. If bettors stay away because they think games are fixed, that income stream dries up.
They also like not losing big bets.
maybe he got threatened by the mafia or cartel
Huh? This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with him having a gambling addiction.
If he himself pissed away all his money gambling that might help explain him doing this for very little money.
I mean he ain’t winning 100 mil….generational bag fumble
Severe gambling problem?
Threatened into doing it?
Possibly really fucking stupid?
If I’ve learned anything from pro athletes over the years it’s probably that last one
Is all of the above an option
I don’t know how you can call it a gambling problem when he rigged his own betting lines. Gambling addicts bet on things they have no control over. He bet on the only thing he has control over. His issue was greed.
Addicts are also prone to taking ridiculous risks when they need money.
You’re only saying that because his outlet happened to be gambling. But in reality, again, it’s the one outcome he could control and this was the only way he could make money doing it. None of that has anything to do with gambling addiction because that isn’t even really gambling. He could’ve done it for a variety of reasons. Greed being the most common reason for this. Do you think low level ITF tennis players are gambling addicts because they take money to throw matches? No. They’re greedy. They saw a way to make guaranteed money and they pursued it. Same thing with Clase. I don’t know if anyone paid him or if he bet on his own lines directly, but regardless you can see the reasoning. It’s greed.
It’s a disease, we should all be supporting the man.
Addiction isn’t a disease. It’s a disorder.
I have a PhD in neuroscience that specialized in addiction neurobiology, so maybe I’m biased. But it’s a bit more complicated.
Relevant primer: https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/programs_campaigns/02._webcast_2_resources.pdf
It’s an interesting debate in the field.
new, what do you own, the world?
HOW DO YOU OWN DISORDER DISORDER
[deleted]
Between the steroids, the gambling and the having a dreadful performance and posting his accomplishments to his Instagram story, I’m leaning stupid.
…no?
Given his history, it is almost certainly that he’s stupid.
When the other option is he is being threatened online into doing it (as well as Luis Ortiz) and neither of them reported it in any aspect and it only happened to these 2 specific players… stupidity is almost certainly the reason.
this shit happens to my 80 year old grandparents, not professional athletes who 1). are all trained on this behavior and 2). likely don’t even run their social media accounts.
Do you actually think that’s a possibility? I thought you were joking in your first comment. Any person with two brain cells to rub together would call the police, if they thought it was a legitimate threat. No athlete in American pro sports is fixing matches because some mouth breather on instagram threatened them.
Maybe, but your example is not plausible lol
So dumb when they could have just bet on pitch speed
If the over was 103 mph, he probably would’ve thrown a 105 sometime this season.
Idk, I don’t understand betting terms.
Can you really bet on that?
Yah. But usually only first pitch of the game. So it’s kind of a joke
For money
For all we know, he didn’t. It’s not like any evidence has been disclosed and the investigation is supposedly still ongoing.
he didn’t have a translator to take the fall for him
That’s how addiction works. :(
He was having a decent season before the ban. Nothing like 2024, but he wasn’t terrible either.
Life comes at you really fast
Either he’s in it for the love of the game or he has bills to pay.
I believe he’s still being paid his salary
I wonder if he’ll spike the first pitch if he’d be allowed
They need to wrap this shit up so everyone can get on with their lives
Anyone know if he would be eligible to play in Asia if MLB bans him for gambling? I am sure the Rakuten Monkeys would be thrilled to have him
He cannot play for the KBO or NPB while on a major league contract
And he can’t play for any winter league that isn’t his home nation (DR) without approval from MLB and his team
I think so. Different leagues and stuff
KBO and NPB are very strict against gambling, I dont see him playing there.
They’re not going to ban him for gambling. They’re going to ban him for misconduct.
Any player or person connected with a Club who shall promise or agree to lose, or to attempt to lose, or to fail to give his best efforts towards the winning of any baseball game with which he is or may be in any way concerned, or who shall intentionally lose or attempt to lose, or intentionally fail to give his best efforts towards the winning of any such baseball game, or who shall solicit or attempt to induce any player or person connected with a Club to lose or attempt to lose, or to fail to give his best efforts towards the winning of any baseball game with which such other player or person is or may be in any way concerned, or who, being solicited by any person, shall fail to inform the Commissioner (in the case of a player or person associated with a Major League Club) or the President of the Minor League Association (in the case of a player or person associated with an independent Minor League Club) immediately of such solicitations and of all facts and circumstances connected therewith, shall be declared permanently ineligible.
I suspect their evidence relies solely on the statistical likelihood of online prop betting patterns, which doesn’t seem to me like it could on its own prove such a violation occurred.
This is where it could get super lawyerly (with the caveat that we don’t yet even know exactly what the accusation and evidence is). Let’s say he threw a couple of waste pitches. That is not inherently “fail to give his best efforts” because guys, including Clase, throw waste pitches as a normal part of the game, and there had even been talk that he was in the zone TOO much and that made him more hittable because batters knew what to expect. So, if he rigged the gambling, but didn’t bet and it was a normal part of his game I don’t know that he violated this. I’m not saying he (or his representatives) win that argument, but with the right odds I’d take the “gets off”.
That’s where I am too. I think. The trouble is prop bets on pitch outcomes are so small-impact that it’s a stretch to apply the rules about fixing games to it, but collusion between players and gamblers is something that we don’t want to see regardless of the perceived impact on the game outcomes.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there are changes made to MLB and gambling advertisers’ commercial relationships here as a result of this.
The evidence on Clase is said to be “irrefutable” according to Hector Gomez. I doubt that it’s solely based on statistical probability.
Hector Gomez has the credibility of a wet noodle
He also claimed more Guardians would be implicated imminently after the Clase news, and we’re still waiting for that
He also said weeks ago that Albert Pujols was the next Angels manager. He is wrong all the time.
Except if it were irrefutable, MLB would have announced it back in August.
I think (assuming the betting patterns were unlikely enough to not happen by chance) it strains credibility to think that Ortiz and Clase weren’t colluding with the people placing bets. But without anything to confirm it, I don’t see how they could conclusively find they violated Rule 21’s player misconduct clause as it is worded. They don’t have any evidence about the players’ behavior; they only have evidence about the gamblers’ behavior.
If it was refutable, and baseball had hard proof in August or so, they still wouldn’t announce it then. They would extend their “non-disciplinary leave” indefinitely (which is exactly what they did in August) and then announced the punishment (likely lifetime bans) during the off-season. They would not want that to be the dominant baseball news story during the final month of the season and certainly not during the postseason.
They probably won’t announce anything until all the awards have been announced at the earliest.
Can’t he just say he retires? Doesn’t sound like he’s going to be in the MLB anymore anyway.
He would forfeit his MLB contract by doing that. Currently he still has a chance of getting paid, even if a very slim one.
Seems very, very slim.
If he “retires”, Cleveland doesn’t give up their rights to him. If a player who is under contract, retires, and then comes out of retirement, the team that holds his contract would still have his exclusive rights. So, he’d still be locked in with Cleveland.
Ah ok.
Based on what
Gambling is a scourge on society
Thankfully the NCAA is now allowing student athletes to bet on professional sports.
This will go well.
I’m serious when I ask: wasn’t the astros scandal worse? Why has that been basically forgotten? In this case, did addiction play a role? Doesn’t that have weight?
A team cheating to win is bad. Someone intentionally losing is worse. And what Ortiz (and presumably Clase, though specifics on the allegations against him haven’t been revealed) did is definetly adjacent to intentionally losing. Completely destroys the belief in the game being competitive. And, without exaggeration, threatens the very existence of Major League Baseball. They have to come down harder on this.
Imo, the Astros involved all should have gotten lengthy suspensions. I’m talking like a full year. But this is lifetime ban stuff. The Astros did the wrong thing for the right reasons (to try and win). These two pitchers did the wrong thing, for very wrong, selfish reasons (to enrich themselves, possibly at the expense of their teammates).
The Astros did the wrong thing for the right reasons (to try and win). These two pitchers did the wrong thing, for very wrong, selfish reasons (to enrich themselves, possibly at the expense of their teammates)
Hey, that’s pretty much my logic on it, glad it’s just not my hometown bias.
Astros cheating ruined careers. It’s just as bad.
Uh wut?? No. No one’s career was ruined. Players and coaches continued their careers and signed new contracts and are all still millionaires. Ruined?? 😂
Whose career was ruined?
Darvish was severely impacted.
He’s pitched 8 seasons since then (with 3 more on his current contract), been an All-Star, finished top 10 in the Cy Young twice, and made $234 million since that World Series. In what way has his career been “ruined”?
Value was significantly reduced after losing games 3 and 7 because of the cheater Astros. Fans threatened his family. If you can’t see it, I can’t help you.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Dodgers/comments/1fxylyv/can_anyone_recall_why_we_let_darvish_go/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Dodgers/comments/1nr5tn4/an_exdodger_that_should_have_been_here_with_us_if/ https://sports.yahoo.com/yu-darvish-feared-people-treat-kids-re-signed-dodgers-194301803.html https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/dwmz6u/darvish_weighs_in_on_the_2017_ws_and_the_astros/
Game 7 was at Dodger Stadium. The Astros didn’t cheat there.
His value was so reduced that he was the 5th highest paid pitcher in baseball the following year (behind just Clayton Kershaw, David Price, Jake Arrieta, and Felix Hernandez). As of right now, he’s 10th all time among pitchers in career earnings.
Fans threatening his family was shitty as fuck. No doubt about it. But his career was not in any way, shape, or form “ruined” as he has, in fact, had a great career.
I’d argue that it wrecks the integrity of those kinds of bets but probably had zero effect on the integrity of the game (pending the evidence being shown to us).
If a guy is intentionally throwing a non-competitive pitch for a bet, it does impact the integrity of the game. Even if that is all it was, league OPS goes from .719 to .806 after a first pitch ball. That’s a huge jump and could absolutely have an impact on a close game.
When Ortiz is alleged to have done it the first time, it was a 0-0 game. That batter ended up walking, and then the Mariners ended up loading the bases, scoring 5 runs, and the Guardians lost the game. It’s a bit of a butterfly effect, to be sure, but a leadoff walk leading to a big inning isn’t exactly a crazy scenario, and knowingly going behind 1-0 makes that leadoff walk more likely.
The second time it happened, it was also a 0-0, game, and that hitter ended up homering on a 2-0 count.
For Clase, it’s entirely possible that a non competitive pitch cost them a game. He came into a 1-0 game, threw a non-competitive 0-0 pitch, ended up hitting Torkelson later during that AB, and after a pinch runner, that runner scored the tying run. The Tigers would score 6 in the 10th to win the game.
First, I’m not saying this argument will work (or is even absolutely correct) but its a perfectly valid argument.
Second, butterflies are carrying an awful lot of weight here. I mean, seriously, what are the chances–what’s even the mechanism?–for a first pitch ball to lead to a HBP?
Third, there are supposed to be a lot of alleged instances. So without looking at all of them its really hard to come to any conclusions as to whether there were any discernible effects on the outcome of the game.
Finally, what if (hypothetically) we found that they had zero effect on the games. Would you still want to ban him or are we in no blood, no foul territory?
It’s an extra pitch you’ve got to throw. It’s a pitch that could have gotten an out, and didn’t.
And that’s assuming he was on the same “first pitch ball” prop bet Ruiz was on. His first pitch that was non-competitive also almost hit Torkelson.
But the point isn’t really that there were, it’s that there could have been. He did this knowing it put the team at greater risk of losing the game. It’s very common knowledge in baseball that a 1-0 count is better for the hitter than a 0-1. And Clase’s alleged incidents are in quite a few really close games; of the 10 I saw, two were in tie games, 2 more were in 1 run games. So 4 times, it was the tying or winning run at the plate. Hitters were about 30% more likely to hit a Home Run starting a count 1-0 compared to 0-1. So even if it never directly impacted the result of the game, he didn’t care if it did.
Absolutely, because if they had zero effect on the games, that’s by sheer luck. The fact is that if he was doing this, he was doing so knowing that it could impact the result of the game. He just didn’t care. So yes, even if he didn’t place a game in that Detroit game (which seems to be the only game in question where it made a difference in Clase’s case, from the games the Internet has found) he needs to be banned from baseball for life. What he did was worse that what Rose did.
It has a huge effect on the integrity of the game. Every single pitch would be second guessed.
A doctor of what?
If it has no effect on the outcome of a game (which one could argue) it has no effect on a game or the game.
Why has that been basically forgotten?
lol the Astros scandal has not been forgotten, Altuve gets booed at almost every stadium still
Springer is totally embraced.
Lol wait until he takes his first at bat on Monday
Uh … I guess you haven’t been around any Mariners or Dodgers subs lately.
The Astros cheated to win, this gambling stuff is the kind of thing that leads very quickly into suspicions of games being actively thrown, and if that happens, competitive integrity is shot to the point where it gets tricky real fast to convince people to watch your sport.
But that’s just it: competitive integrity was shot due to the cheating as well.
Astros were trying to win games, I think that’s part of the difference.
During the scandal the hitters still had to hit the ball, and while they had an alleged competitive advantage, it’s less than Clase being able to just spike a ball to win a bet, or groove a ball to give up a homer.
Or Pete Rose managing games differently depending on if he bet on the game or not.
Also, one is tied to one of the ultimate taboos of the sport, gambling, while the other is tied to something that has a history of being mostly accepted in the sport, sign stealing, the Astros just took it too far.
Not in the same way though. The Astros were trying to gain an advantage to get more hits/win more. Not ok, but still in the line with the core spirit of sports, that being “try to win”. Throwing a game is entirely antithetical to that.
Think of how pissed off fans get when a manager makes a dumb pitching change, and how there’s jokes about “what, is he working for the other team?”. Now imagine if there’s actually a real possibility that they’re actually being paid to do stuff like that. Suddenly there’s no point in watching, because of your team isn’t trying to win, what’s the fucking point?
It’s why the Black Sox are still infamous, and why Pete Rose is still banned from baseball. And a whole other level of bad from just cheating to get an edge, be that trash cans or steroids
Very upsetting that you’re being downvoted. Sorry man. You are right.
wasn’t the astros scandal worse?
Absolutely.
Because one causes the gambling company to lose money and the other makes the gambling company money.
Suppose the Dodgers were the favourites, then having the Astros win will make the bet profitable for the gambling company (as most bettors picked the wrong winner). In Clase’s case, the gambling company loses as there are many lopsided bets that picked the least likely outcome. If the Astros also made prop bets which will cause the gambling company to lose money, then the gambling sponsor would definitely have asked MLB to punish the Astros severely. Admitting that the Astros cheated will also open a can of worms as all bets would be invalidated.
This would seem to indicate that they think he’s going to be reinstated
Unpopular opinion: He should be harshly suspended. Like for a year. But not banned for life.
He didn’t throw games. He threw one ball on purpose. I bet he still got a clean inning anyway.
I agree with you (though of course we haven’t see the full evidence or even full allegations yet). I don’t think he hurt the game at all; He hurt gamblers that frankly have way too big a place in the game at this point. It will really suck if we lose a great player because MLB and its “gambling partners” have found it necessary to make enormous money off of gambling.
That’s the hypocrisy of it all. They’re making tons of money and allowing new ways for players to get in trouble. 10 years ago, there’s no way pitchers would be tempted like this. There’s just no bet opportunities back then.
Personally, I think they should make Clase a poster child for the “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU level of data” they can gather through unusual betting patterns. And that gambling ruins the game.
That if any ballplayer does anything remotely fishy, there’s a high likelihood he’ll get caught.
Because my hunch is that Clase just had no idea he’d get caught and that it meant anything to do it. He probably rationalized that he throws a ball just to challenge himself sometimes and so what difference would it make, if he made some money for friends too?
How is that hypocrisy? There’s rules for all kinds of things and he broke the rules. It’s not hypocrisy to allow the advertisement of alcoholic beverages but arrest 18 year olds for drinking alcohol or arrest drunk drivers. The rules are clear. Don’t bet on a league you’re a member of. That’s pretty much the only rule. The best analogy is insider trading in the stock market. Not allowed. Clase thought he could get away with it. He knew it was wrong. And he even took it a step further by actually rigging his own betting lines.
He has to be banned for life because if he’s not, every single time he pitches, fans will wonder if he has money on it. The credibility is gone. It would be no different than if an umpire bet on a pitch and called it a strike/ball. No one would trust them again.
Why?
Do you wonder if George Springer is still stealing signs? Or if Fernando Tatis is still juicing? Of course not.
People break rules. It happens. That doesn’t mean they’re gonna do it for the rest of their lives.
Idk why these headlines have to be so dishonest. A more accurate headline would be “Emmanuel Clase wants to pitch in Venezuela while under MLB investigation WHILE STILL GETTING PAID BY THE GUARDIANS, but Guardians say no”.
Any chance he’s got an interpreter willing to take the hit for some dough later?
i know he did some dumbshit but damm man gambling ruins people and MLB promotes that shit. let this dude pitch again if not i hope he has a great career in the NPB
At this point, I’m assuming they haven’t disclosed anything concrete or taken decisive action because it would require them to disclose something highly embarrassing for MLB and its sponsoring online gambling sites.
I’m a Guardians fan, and he really f*cked us over, but idk why this is getting downvoted. Gambling addiction is a disease, and I also hope he gets better and gets to do what he loves and is good at.
Whether its a disease or not doesn’t change that he broke the biggest rule in baseball and fucked all of his teammates and fans over. You don’t get to have no consequences for that.
I didn’t say no consequence. If he broke an MLB rule that says he can’t play in the MLB then that’s the consequence. I don’t think the MLB should be able to tell him there isn’t a place he can go to on earth to play baseball for money and enforce that.
That wasn’t his issue though. What he did is more like fraud than it is gambling addiction. He rigged his own betting lines.
Gambling addiction is a disease, and the MLB promotes it. Also I feel for the guy, I hope he lands on his feet.
But also, you’ve got to ban players for life if they bet on the games. Otherwise the sport will crumble.
The Guardians could just be making sure he doesn’t get bombed in Venezuela the way things are going, lol.