On Monday, Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase — who had one of the greatest relief pitcher seasons in recent memory last year — was placed on “non-disciplinary paid leave” as part of MLB’s sports betting investigation.
Those are four soulless lawyerly words — “non-disciplinary paid leave.” They suggest that clouds might be gathering and a storm might be coming, but as of right now, we’re all going to try and stay calm and pretend that it might turn out all right.
The fact that Clase has been suspended for more than a month — even if it’s being called “non-disciplinary” and even if he will continue to be paid — tells you it will not.
This looks to be a baseball catastrophe.
For fun, let’s compare two baseball commissioner statements, shall we?
This is from Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1921 after the Black Sox players were acquitted by a jury:
“Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player that throws a ballgame, no player that undertakes or promised to throw a ballgame, no player that sits in a conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing games are planned and discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.”
This is what Rob Manfred said in 2025, less than two weeks before Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase — who last had one of the greatest relief pitching seasons in memory — was “placed on non-disciplinary paid leave” for more than a month as part of MLB’s sports betting investigation:
“I know there was a lot of sports betting, tons of it that went on illegally, and we had no idea, no idea what threats there were to the integrity of play because it was all not transparent. I firmly believe that the transparency and monitoring that we have in place now — as a result of the legalization and the partnerships that we’ve made — puts us in a better position to protect baseball than we were in before.”
Oh yeah, getting into bed with gamblers always puts you in better position to protect your interests.
Those statements feel, um, different, right? The first was a declaration that baseball would not consort with gamblers, and anyone who did would be banned forever. The second was a rationalization for Major League Baseball — or, excuse me, Major League Baseball, presented by DraftKings, sponsored by FanDuel, subsidized by BetMGM — getting so cozy with gamblers that they might well ask umpires to moonlight as blackjack dealers.
Even if the Clase thing doesn’t turn out bad — and it sounds very, very bad — you think this is the last of MLB’s gambling problems? The worst? You can’t watch a game without being inundated with gambling ads and betting opportunities. You can’t go to a game without seeing gambling signage. You can’t listen to a game without the announcers giving you gambling advice.
This is the road baseball chose. And it will only get worse. The non-disciplinary paid leaves will keep on coming. The game will sink deeper and deeper. Because in gambling, there’s one rule: The house always wins. And, in this world, MLB is most definitely not the house.
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