PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Making 387 baseball bets while a member of the Pirates, Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano has been suspended for life. What was the reaction of his former manager and a Pirates MVP?
The 24-year-old Marcano bet more than $150,000 on baseball, 25 of those bets included Pirates games while he was a member of the organization. Those bets were placed when he was on the injured list and most were parlays which included multiple MLB-related legs. MLB said Marcano never appeared in a game on which he placed a wager.
A teammate for only the 2023 season, Bucs outfielder Andrew McCutchen was fairly to the point about what Marcano did.
“Nobody is perfect, it’s unfortunate,” McCutchen said Tuesday. “What you do in the dark will come to light. Now you have to deal with the consequences of making those poor choices and I guess that’s all she wrote.”
“Sad,” said Pirates manager Derek Shelton. “Anybody that spent time around Tuca, he was a good kid, so sad when I heard the news.”
However.
“This is the one non-negotiable we have in our sport,” Shelton said. “It's the one rule that we stand up at the beginning of spring training and Rule 21 is read to every player. It's posted in our clubhouse. There's a standard to being a major-league player. This is one of the gold standards if not the gold standard and I think that's why we've seen the punishments that have happened over the course of time that have had the severity that they've had.”
McCutchen doesn’t see this as a revelatory moment for other players. He said in his 15 years in the majors he believes professional baseball players get it or at least should.
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“It should be pretty obvious, it’s shouldn’t take it actually happening for people to say ‘oh shoot, I ain’t going to bet on baseball now’,” McCutchen said. “It’s just something that you obviously should know. If you bet on baseball, you aren’t going to play. Pretty self-explanatory, if people decide to still go that route, it’s on them.”
“We are extremely disappointed in Tucupita’s actions and are fully supportive of Major League Baseball’s ruling,” the Pirates organization said in a statement released by the club. “The Pirates, along with MLB, the Players Association, and every Club, work to ensure all involved within our game are aware of the rules and policies around gambling. While the thorough investigation revealed no evidence of any games being compromised, influenced, or manipulated in any way in this case, protecting the integrity of our game is paramount."
Marcano came to the Pirates from the Padres in July of 2021 in the trade for Adam Frazier. He was then claimed off waivers by San Diego this past November after the infielder hit .217 with three home runs in three big league seasons with the Padres and Pirates.