NEW YORK (AP) — Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz went on trial Monday on costs that they accepted bribes while colluding with gamblers who won hundreds of thousands of dollars betting on individual slots.
Their careers and perhaps their freedom are on the line during the jury trial in Brooklyn federal court. Jury selection began after the players arrived on the field in the morning. Several professional baseball players, including catchers and baseball executives, are among the expected witnesses in a month-long trial.
Clase, the former Guardians closer, and Ortiz, the incumbent, have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges and are on non-disciplinary leave from the club without pay until their fate is determined.
According to an indictment, the pitchers accepted several thousand dollars in rewards to help two players from their native Dominican Republic win at least $460,000 on in-play prop bets on the speed and outcome of certain pitches.
AP AUDIO: Fraud trial underway in New York for Cleveland Guardians pitchers, including star reliever
AP correspondent Julie Walker reports that Cleveland Guardians pitchers, including a star reliever, will be tried in New York for fraud.
Prosecutors allege that Clase began providing bettors with information about his locations in 2023 and recruited Ortiz into the scheme in 2025. Ortiz’s lawyers unsuccessfully sought to have Ortiz tried separately from Clase.
Clase, 28, is a three-time All-Star and two-time American League Reliever of the Year who finished his fourth season a $20 million, five-year contract when the accusations against the pitchers were revealed in November 2025.
Ortiz, 27, had earned $782,600 as the Guardians’ starting pitcher during the 2025 season.
The pitchers were charged with wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to corruptly influence sporting competitions.
Defense attorneys are expected to argue that the pitchers did not collude with the players and instead varied the location of the pitches strategically to deceive batters.
On Friday, Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto, who is presiding over the trial, ruled that prosecutors could not show the jury evidence that Clase owed $500,000 in U.S. taxes because they did not provide the evidence to defense attorneys until several days earlier and well after a deadline had expired to turn over the evidence to their opponents.
A prosecutor had argued that the government wanted to present evidence at trial to counter claims by Clase’s lawyers that he had no incentive to collude with gamblers because he had several million dollars in financial accounts in the Dominican Republic.
Both Major League Baseball and the Guardians said they have fully cooperated with authorities. MLB said it contacted federal law enforcement when it began investigating unusual betting activity.
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