MLB has been “slow and hesitant” in investigating Mizuhara and Ohtani, says Manfred

NEW YORK — The saga of a California bookmaker has prompted Major League Baseball to launch two investigations: the first into Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, and the second into a former teammate of Ohtani’s, David Fletcher. But virtually everything that is publicly known about these cases comes from two other sources: the news media, particularly ESPN, and federal authorities. MLB, on the other hand, seems reactive and acts only when pressed.

According to Commissioner Rob Manfred, MLB has no choice but to be respectful.

Although MLB’s investigative division is led by former Justice Department lawyers, Manfred said Tuesday that the group will often “leave behind” the investigative work of others in illegal gambling cases. Bookmakers operate outside the channels MLB can normally monitor, and federal authorities have greater investigative capabilities in any situation.

“I love our people at the Home Office. I think they do a damn good job with what they have at their disposal,” Manfred said. “The government has a lot more tools than we do. It’s as simple as that.”

Investigations into legal gambling are sometimes triggered by alerts that baseball headquarters receives about strange or anomalous activity. For example, a regulator in Colorado helped flag the bets of a former minor league player on baseball. Peter Bayer was excluded from the game since 2021.

In cases of illegal bookmaking, however, the league’s options are more limited, said Manfred.

“Some investigations are initiated because of surveillance activities that are not public, and depending on the outcome of those investigations, you may never know about them,” Manfred said generally.

Mizuhara placed sports bets (but not on baseball, according to federal prosecutors) with bookmaker Mathew Bowyer. ESPN reported that Fletcher, currently a minor leaguer with the Atlanta Braves, places non-baseball sports Betting with Bowyer too.

“The bets were not placed as part of a legal betting operation,” Manfred said. “So there’s no oversight, right? We have no way of knowing what an illegal bookmaker is doing. … And by definition, in most cases we’re going to chase what’s happening, usually a press report or a criminal investigation.”

U.S. prosecutors have accused Mizuhara of illegally transferring nearly $17 million from Ohtani. He is expected to plead guilty as part of a plea agreement.

“You have to make a judgment call on the interpreter situation,” Manfred said of MLB’s investigative method. “The federal investigation was already so far advanced. There was so much potential for us to interfere in that investigation in an unproductive way that we went slowly and looked forward to hopefully getting a result in a relatively short period of time.”

(Photo of Mizuhara: Kirby Lee / USA Today)