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Now that the World Series is complete, MLB news at this time of year will typically be all about awards for last season and trades for next season. But instead, we get the bombshell that Emmanuel Clase and Luis Oritz of the Cleveland Guardians are accused of throwing pitches in MLB games to profit themselves and a group of bettors. It would appear very likely to end their baseball careers.
Now, you might think that these guys must have been offered enormous sums of money to risk their professional baseball earnings. Clase is on a 5 year, $20 million deal and Ortiz on a one-year deal for $782,600. But no, the amount of money cited in the indictments appears trivial. From Cleveland.com:
In a game against Seattle on June 15, 2025, Ortiz received a $5,000 bribe for throwing a ball (instead of a strike) on a particular pitch. Clase received $5,000 as the middle man between Ortiz and bettors.
On June 27, 2025 against St. Louis, Ortiz agreed to throw another rigged pitch in exchange for a $7,000 bribe, while Clase received $7,000 for arranging the pitch. Before the game, according to the indictment, Clase withdrew $50,000 and gave $15,000 to co-conspirators, who bet on Ortiz’s pitch. The total illegal payoff for the bettors was about $60,000.
Which leaves me wondering – why? Why would either of these guys, particularly Clase, risk so much for so little. Greed? Maybe. The thrill of “getting away with it”? Perhaps. The only satisfying answer to me is that human beings, all of us included, are never entirely rational. We are not, and will never be, Homo Economicus.
At times all of us will makes choices with our finances that aren’t rational. Others around us will make financial decisions that will leave us dismayed and puzzled. But it has always been the same and always will be. The best we can hope for is to catch ourselves, and make a few less poor choices along the way.
Herbert Simon was the first non-economist to win the Nobel Prize in Economics for his theory of bounded rationality and psychologist Daniel Kahneman also won the Nobel for identifying the hard-wired mental biases that affect our economic behavior.
I don’t think that Clase or Ortiz read any of those academic papers!
Greg, without having any expertise or inside knowledge, I would speculate that these bad decisions were driven by what you cite as the thrill of “getting away with it”. Adrenaline is an addictive drug.
Just in the past 12 months two world-renowned soccer players chose to drive their racing-level sports cars at high speed. One, a newlywed with three children, blew a tire and was killed along with his brother. The other, who had previously been involved in a similar high-speed crash, survived but nearly lost his leg and his career. There was no rationality to those decisions either — just adrenaline.
Humans, and young men in particular, do seem to make some very questionable decisions.
I wonder if beyond greed, was it simply a case of not fully understanding the concept of risk and reward? It just seems such a massive risk for such a small reward. Very bizarre. Slightly off topic, but just to satisfy my curiosity: why is a US baseball competition called the World Series? My understanding is no other countries, like Japan, etc., compete.
Mark, when the first World Series was played in 1903, no other nations played baseball, so I suppose it was inarguable that the winner could be properly proclaimed the best team in the world. But history does not record how the name came to be.
Mike, now that makes sense. Thanks for clearing that little mystery up.
And why does the National Hockey League have teams from Canada?
Randy, I hope you were joking. Hockey is Canada’s national sport, replied this somewhat bewildered Canadian !
No, Mark, I wasn’t joking. Ok then, why does the NHL have US teams?
Do you live in North America, or elsewhere ? If the former, then I’m speechless. If the latter, then understandable.
The NHL was originally comprised of six teams – Montreal 1917, Toronto 1917, Boston 1924, and then New York, Chicago, and Detroit in 1926. These teams are known as The Original Six, which remained until expansion in 1967.
The NHL has ALWAYS had teams based in Canada and the US.
Note: this is not 100% accurate as a number of early franchises on both sides of the border folded in those early years due to the Depression or other financial reasons.
I live in the US. I was just making the point that national means one nation, not two.
And then there are NCAA football conferences where Missouri and Texas are now in the Southeast Conference, the Big 10 conference has 18 teams, the Big 12 conference has 16 teams and the Atlantic Coast conference includes Stanford, Cal, and Notre Dame.
I was at a Big 10 school when there were 10!
Canada (Toronto Blue Jays) nearly snagged the World Series. So I suppose that makes it global (insert winking emoji)!
😂
Individual “prop” bets for pitches and basketball players scores will probably be banned. The gambling sites know when the bets are outsized and were able to detect these cheaters. From the Chicago Black Sox to Pete Rose someone is always gambling on baseball. Hopefully the players now know that they will get caught.
“Prop” bets have also been a large issue in cricket. A bowler would be bribed to manufacture a particular result on a given ball (equivalent of pitch).
Gambling has an terrible impact upon both the sport and the gamblers.
It appears the players made bad decisions, of course. But the larger truth is that baseball, in its greed, opened the door for these decisions by embracing gambling. This is the tip of the iceberg for players and so many more who are succumbing to the lethal march of sports gambling.
Anyone that gambles on sports needs to have their head examined.
Part of me agrees. But I also know several people that are otherwise fine, high functioning people that have been seduced by gambling. So it strikes me as a really difficult, complex issue.
Personally, I would be happy to see all gambling abolished. But I know that won’t happen any time soon.
Greg – It would be difficult to put that genie back in the bottle.
I have the same observation about American collegiate football and basketball – it would be better if they got rid of the TV and ad revenue and reverted to intramural sports. If the NFL and NBA need to develop young players, let them sponsor minor league teams, which is what Major League Baseball does.
$5000 sure is a LOT of money to most people.
But to these guys …
By concluding that, in part, Mr. Clase and Mr. Ortiz made less than rational financial decisions by allegedly accepting modest sums of money for conspiring with bettors and rigging some pitches, Mr. Tomamichel is very charitable to them. It is less charitable, but at least equally accurate, to say that they were simply foolish, as well as being greedy.
Mr. Clase will not get paid the rest of his multi-million dollar contract once MLB and the Guardians convert the paid, non-disciplinary suspension into a termination. Mr. Ortiz will suffer a similar loss of income after his contract ends.
Both will likely receive a lifetime ban from the MLB. Their highly-paid professional baseball careers in the MLB are over.
Both, if convicted of the alleged crimes or if they plead guilty to one or more of the charges, will likely be imprisoned for a period of years. The facts that they are non-violent offenders presumably with no previous criminal records may mitigate the severity of their sentences, but should not suffice to keep them out of prison. That imprisonment will occur after they incur substantial legal fees to fight the allegations.
it is an understatement to view their choices as, in part, merely less than rational financial decision making. For modest payoffs, they have wrecked their careers and financial well-being and have exposed themselves to the risk of significant prison time. Irrational and foolish.
Thanks Gary. Not often I get referred to as “Mr. Tomamichel”!
I did purposefully err on the side of being charitable, as the point was well made by the numbers, without me passing judgement on Clase and Ortiz.
However I did get the idea for this article from watching a Youtube video by “Fuzzy”. He is a Guardians fan, and through the video described going through the five stages of grief. He was understandably irate and dismayed.
Just wait this is the tip of the iceberg.
We are all sinners at one time or another.
My dad was a life long Cleveland fan; I’m sure he’s turning over in his grave at this news.
I hope not, Dan. Lord knows he suffered enough during his lifetime.
Clase was one of the best closers in baseball. Mind-boggling.
Yes, indeed. One does wonder at his thinking to get to this point.
Unless he’s been doing it all along and only now was caught.
I’m sure the investigations will go way, way back.