NEW YORK (AP) — Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were described by a prosecutor Wednesday as “cheaters” during opening statements at a New York criminal fraud trial that has cast a spotlight on the threat gamblers pose to America's pastime.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Urquiola told a jury in Brooklyn that Clase befriended a sports betting gambler in the Dominican Republic in early 2023 who shared his interest in dominoes and cockfighting, which is legal in his home country.
Clase eventually agreed to tell “his new friend” what kinds of pitches he would throw in certain games, enabling gamblers to reap at least $460,000 on platforms that allow customers to bet on whether a pitch would be a ball or a strike, she said.
“The defendants, Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz, are cheaters,” Urquiola told jurors. She said they “sold their pitches.”
Clase, the Guardians’ former star closer, and Ortiz, a starter, have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges and are on non-disciplinary leave from the club without pay while facing prosecution. They were arrested in November 2025 and have been free on bail since.
Prosecutors said Clase began providing information about his pitches to bettors in 2023 and recruited Ortiz into the scheme in 2025.
Clase, 28, is a three-time All-Star and two-time American League Reliever of the Year who had completed the fourth season of a $20 million, five-year contract when conspiracy and fraud charges against the pitchers were made public in November 2025.
Ortiz, 27, earned $782,600 as a starting pitcher for the Guardians during the 2025 season.
Urquiola said Clase saw gamblers profiting from his pitches and “decided it wasn't enough to help his friends make money,” so he asked for kickbacks.
She said text messages in which the pitchers described rigged pitches and bets, sometimes using code words such as “chicken” or “rooster,” along with testimony from some gamblers, would prove the government's case.
Defense lawyers, however, said their clients were innocent and that a gambler who befriended Clase falsely claimed to other gamblers that the pitcher was providing inside information on his pitches and tried to sell them the information.
Michael Bronson, an attorney for Clase, said his client attended school until age 15 in a small coastal village in the Dominican Republic before focusing on baseball and becoming “a standout, a superstar” with a reputation for shutting down teams in the final inning of games.
He said Clase was 25 in the spring of 2023 when he met a 41-year-old gambler, Enoc Pena, who made over 7,000 bets from 2023 to 2025 and had a history of lying to get what he wanted.
Pena “didn't see a peer, a friend. He saw a mark,” Bronson said.
Soon Pena was bringing Clase food and picking him up at the airport in the Dominican Republic, the lawyer said. The pitcher, in turn, gave him tickets to Guardians games and loaned him money.
As Pena bragged to fellow gamblers that he was close to Clase and tried to sell them information, he was actually guessing which pitches Clase would throw in games and managed with fellow gamblers to lose over 200 bets on Clase's pitches, the lawyer said.
Pena was “selling lies,” Bronson said, urging jurors to ask themselves if his client would risk “a fortune and his lifelong dream over a few thousand dollars.”
Attorney Samuel Landes, representing Ortiz, told jurors in an opening statement that the pitcher had no contact with gamblers and that only two of his pitches, both balls, are at stake in the trial.
“That's not a conspiracy. That's just baseball,” he said.
At one point, Landes asked his client to stand as he introduced him to the jury. Ortiz stood up and waved.
Landes said Ortiz was victimized by Pena's lies, including allegations that the pitcher — who had received $1.7 million in advance for future contracts and stood to make millions more — had accepted $5,000 for tips about his pitches.
“Why would Luis Ortiz throw all that away for $5,000? He would not,” he said.
Landes said Pena had struck a deal with prosecutors allowing him to avoid prison and stay in the U.S. despite lying to banks and about his marital status on immigration forms.
Although Pena was once listed as a possible witness at the trial, prosecutors said last week that they did not intend to put him on the witness stand.
