{"id":523198,"date":"2026-01-16T09:06:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/523198\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T09:06:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:06:26","slug":"emmanuel-clase-defense-says-texts-were-about-cockfighting-not-pitches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/523198\/","title":{"rendered":"Emmanuel Clase defense says texts were about cockfighting, not pitches"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 Text messages at the heart of the prosecution against Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase weren\u2019t about rigging pitches \u2014 they were about a cockfighting operation that Clase ran in the Dominican Republic, defense attorneys say. <\/p>\n

One of the bettors, listed only as Bettor-1 in the indictment, said in a sworn affidavit filed last week that he became friends with Clase and bet on cockfights that Clase ran. <\/p>\n

Defense attorneys for Clase and teammate Luis Ortiz said the affidavit is part of a slew of witnesses that said in sworn affidavits that they never coordinated bets on pitches with Clase or teammate Luis Ortiz. Those messages were listed in criminal charges as evidence that the hurlers tanked pitches for bettors and received kickbacks. <\/p>\n

Defense attorneys say witnesses have sworn they never coordinated with Clase or Ortiz \u201cand expressly testified that they never received any form of information or assistance from Messrs. Clase or Ortiz, directly or indirectly, to assist them in winning a bet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosecutors shot back in recent days that the bettor and other witnesses made the statements to defense attorneys prior to the criminal charges being filed, and at least one has recanted. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe government\u2019s investigation has revealed that the purportedly exculpatory statements contained in the declarations are false,\u201d prosecutors wrote. <\/p>\n

Clase, 27, and Ortiz, 26, have pleaded not guilty<\/a> to charges <\/a>of wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery and money laundering.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say<\/a> Clase worked with unnamed bettors from 2023 to 2025 to rig pitches for so-called prop bets and that Ortiz helped this past season after joining the team. They are accused of helping bettors win some $460,000 by intentionally throwing balls or pitches at predetermined speeds and were paid from the bettors\u2019 winnings. <\/p>\n

The trial is scheduled for May 4<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The indictment said that Clase, Ortiz and the bettors texted in code words about betting on pitches. Defense attorneys countered that the texts should be read literally and that they were really texting about cockfights, home repairs and horses that both Clase and Ortiz own. <\/p>\n

The filing says Clase, one of baseball\u2019s top closers, is a well-known horse breeder and \u201cparticipant in rooster fighting activities in the Dominican Republic.\u201d <\/p>\n

The affidavit of Bettor-1 says he met Clase in Boston in 2023 through a mutual acquaintance. The two bonded over baseball and being from the Dominican Republic, the affidavit said. <\/p>\n

According to the affidavit, the bettor began dating someone who lived in Cleveland, and he saw Clase often. Sometimes he\u2019d stay at Clase\u2019s home and run errands for Clase\u2019s family, the affidavit said. He also arranged for authentic Dominican food to be shipped to Clase\u2019s home from New York because \u201cit is very difficult to obtain authentic Dominican food in Ohio,\u201d the affidavit said. <\/p>\n

Clase paid him for the help, including a payment for about $2,000, the affidavit said. <\/p>\n

The man said he placed legal bets on Clase because he used to be a pitcher, knew Clase typically threw only two pitches\u2014 a cut fastball and slider \u2014 and believed he\u2019d picked up Clase\u2019s tendencies to throw certain pitches at certain times. <\/p>\n

He also said he used ChatGPT in an attempt to analyze Clase\u2019s and other\u2019s pitches. He said he lost thousands of dollars betting on Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes because he couldn\u2019t predict what pitches Skenes would throw. <\/p>\n

The affidavit said Clase never gave the man any information about pitches he intended to throw or any other information he could use to place bets, including when the man attended Guardians games on tickets Clase provided. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I never discussed baseball gambling with Emmanuel in any way, I did discuss betting on rooster fighting with him,\u201d the affidavit says. \u201cIn the Dominican Republic, gambling on roosters is completely legal and Emmanuel has a rooster fighting operation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND, Ohio \u2014 Text messages at the heart of the prosecution against Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase weren\u2019t about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[5,135,51,3188,2565,538,16916,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-523198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-guardians","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cleveland","10":"tag-cleveland-guardians","11":"tag-cleveland-guardians-2025","12":"tag-clevelandguardians","13":"tag-guardians","14":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers-2025","15":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115903986622398159","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}