Worldwide Sports News

Lawyers for Guardians pitcher Luis Ortiz want to sever the cases against him and teammate Emmanuel Clase as federal prosecutors allege they were both involved in a pitching-rigging scheme. 

Ortiz’s lawyer, Christos N. Georgalis, asked for a federal judge to break up the cases so they could move forward independently of each other while labelling his client “a victim of Clase’s scheme, rather than a knowing and willing participant,” according to a legal filing unsealed Monday and viewed by The Athletic. 

Georgalis pointed to the purported difference in their respective involvement in the alleged pitch-rigging scheme to support his argument. 

The filing also cites the potential for a conflict of interest as grounds for severing the case into two, mentioning that Clase’s attorneys spoke with witnesses who claimed the betting scheme did not exist. Now, one of those people is expected to testify differently. 

There is also the possibility that Ortiz’s lawyer could serve as a “second prosecutor” and call Clase’s attorney to the stand — which would only occur if the cases were split — in order to defend Ortiz, The Athletic reported. 

Federal prosecutors unsealed a 23-page indictment alleging that Clase rigged pitches dating back to May 2023 by throwing them for balls to help bettors’ prop bets hit. 

Ortiz is alleged to have joined in June 2025. Both players allegedly got kickbacks. 

Prosecutors allege that bettors netted winnings of $460,000. 

The two pitchers face charges of wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery and money laundering conspiracy.

The original indictment alleged Clase made four suspicious pitches, but prosecutors have been open to the idea that there were more. Ortiz was accused of rigging two pitches. 

The recent filing indicated that Georgalis would use as one of the “likely defenses” that Clase gave out Ortiz’s pitching strategy to gamblers without the pitcher’s knowledge. 

Clase and Ortiz remain on leave from MLB and will not be allowed to attend Guardians spring training.

TAMPA — Et tu, IKF?

That was not exactly Aaron Boone’s response to Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s recent dig that the Blue Jays thought the Yankees were a better matchup for them than the Red Sox in last year’s ALDS.

But the manager was not overly interested in getting into a sparring match with his former player, either.

“I guess he was right,” Boone said Wednesday at Steinbrenner Field. “Little surprising to hear IKF say that, but whatever. That’s fine.”

Kiner-Falefa, who only started one of the four games in the ALDS for the Blue Jays as they whooped the Yankees, made the revelation Tuesday in his first day as a Red Sox player — following the lead of new teammates Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras, who also leaned into the rivalry in their first comments in Boston.

The Yankees beat the Red Sox in three games in the AL wild-card series, but Kiner-Falefa said the Blue Jays, who had a bye to face the winner of that series, had some rooting interest

“We thought it was a better matchup for us the other way [to face the Yankees],” Kiner-Falefa told reporters in Fort Myers, Fla., per The Athletic. “We were watching that [series], and we were watching [Garrett] Crochet just dice up.

“I think we had just lost two out of three [to Boston], and it put us behind the Yankees or tied us with them for the AL East lead [in late September]. We definitely felt [Boston] was a tougher matchup for us. Once we saw the other team, we were a lot happier. It was definitely a topic.”

Perhaps that should not be much of a surprise, as the Blue Jays had the Yankees’ number during the regular season, especially at Rogers Centre.

Asked if he was bothered by Kiner-Falefa’s comments, Boone insisted he was not, even if his tone suggested at least a hint of being perturbed.

“Not really, honestly,” Boone said. “You got to play who you play. Whatever.”

Paul Goldschmidt declined to reveal if he had any offers to start at first base with other teams, but said he was happy to be back with the Yankees in what is expected to be a reserve role behind first baseman Ben Rice.

“Honestly, when last year ended, I had such a good time here, I was hoping my time wasn’t done,” said Goldschmidt, who agreed to a one-year, $4 million deal that had not yet been made official as of Wednesday. “I think Benny’s definitely going to be planning to be getting the bulk of the playing time over there. I’m definitely fine with whatever role they need me [in]. Whenever I get an opportunity, I’ll be ready to go.

Boone said he believed that all pitchers, catchers and WBC participants reported as scheduled Wednesday, with position players set to join them Sunday.

Netflix is targeting the all-time home run king. 

The streaming giant is pursuing Barry Bonds for its historic Opening Day game broadcast between the Giants and Yankees at Oracle Park in San Francisco on March 25, according to The Athletic.  

Bonds would likely “be on site for the pregame and postgame” if the two sides come to a deal, per the report.

Netflix is also reportedly trying to bring in CC Sabathia, who would provide a Yankees tie-in to counter Bonds, who played 15 years with the Giants. 

The Athletic added that it’s likely Elle Duncan, who left ESPN in November to become the new face of Netflix’s sports programming, will be the top presenter for the game. 

Beginning this year, Netflix will air a standalone, prime-time game to kick off the season as part of a three-year deal with MLB. 

The deal also gives them exclusive rights to the Home Run Derby and the “Field of Dreams” game on Aug. 13 in Dyersville, Iowa, between the Phillies and Twins. 

Bonds, whose career ended after the 2007 season, hasn’t had a national broadcasting job since his playing days. 

The legendary slugger was most recently in the news in December, when he was once again held out of the Baseball Hall of Fame, falling short of Cooperstown due to ties to steroids. 

Bonds works as a special advisor for the Giants and previously served as the Marlins’ hitting coach during the 2016 season.

Sabathia, who was part of the 2025 Hall of Fame class, has worked in various media ventures since retiring from baseball, including frequent appearances on MLB Network and hosting the “R2C2 Podcast” with Ryan Ruocco.

The Baltimore Orioles finally added a free agent pitcher to their rotation, agreeing to a one-year, $18.5 million contract with right-hander Chris Bassitt, ESPN first reported.

Bassitt, who turns 37 Feb. 22, was a reliable cog in the Toronto Blue Jays’ rotation the past three seasons, posting a 3.89 ERA and pitching at least 170 innings each season.

That reliability was certainly attractive to the Orioles, who will be relying on a trio of starters who underwent elbow surgery over the past three years.

Bassitt will slide somewhere between Kyle Bradish, lefty Trevor Rogers and trade acquisition Shane Baz in the Orioles rotation. Innings eater Dean Kremer moves to the fifth spot.

Bassitt also performed well out of the bullpen in the Blue Jays’ run to Game 7 of the World Series, giving up just one earned run in seven postseason appearances. He also reached the playoffs with Oakland and the New York Mets.

PORT ST. LUCIE — Kodai Senga is still taking the approach he can pitch like an ace for the Mets — even as the organization has pushed him toward a back burner.

“These past two years have been frustrating and tough mentally,” the right-hander said through his interpreter Wednesday on the reporting date for pitchers and catchers to spring training. “At some point maybe I started to lose confidence. But in this world, you either do it or you don’t, and I’m here to do it.”

Senga entered a free fall in the second half of last season — after returning from a stint on the injured list with a hamstring strain — that culminated with him accepting an assignment to Triple-A Syracuse in September.

He finished with a 3.02 ERA overall, a testament to a strong first half in which he often resembled an ace.

It followed a year in which Senga pitched only once in the 2024 regular season due to various ailments.

Does Senga have to regain the organization’s trust?

“Before showing the organization anything I think I need to prove it to myself that I can go out there and pitch a full season,” Senga said. “And then once I prove it to myself I think then comes the third party, how everybody else sees me, so first I need to be out there for myself.”

The Mets saw the best of Senga in 2023, when he pitched to a 2.98 ERA over 29 starts with 202 strikeouts over 166 ¹/₃ innings.

But he’s started only 23 games since that rookie season.

Freddy Peralta and Nolan McLean have moved ahead of Senga atop the Mets rotation, leaving Senga in a mix that includes Sean Manaea, Clay Holmes and David Peterson.

As an indicator of how much his stock has fallen, the Mets this offseason entertained trade proposals for Senga, who still has $30 million remaining on his contract over the next two years.

Senga communicated to club officials that he wanted to remain with the Mets.

“I control only what I can control,” Senga said. “At that point I hadn’t gotten traded yet so I just wanted to do whatever I could in the moment and be back out there for the Mets and play hard.”

The Orioles completely struck out when it came to the top end of the free agent starting pitching market this year. With camp opening up, they made a move to try to shore up the back end with an established veteran, bringing recent Blue Jay Chris Bassitt in on a one-year contract worth a reported $18.5 million. ESPN’s Jeff Passan broke the news of the deal on Wednesday night.

Bassitt brings some unexciting dependability into the picture. The 37-year-old has pitched in 11 big league seasons and in his most recent campaign with the Jays, he pitched 32 games, plus another seven in the postseason. He has started at least 30 games in each of the past four seasons.

In 2025, Bassitt had a 3.96 ERA in the regular season with peripherals to roughly match that. On the off chance that he can turn back the clock a little bit, he might be able to descend into more the mid-3 ERA range like he had in his mid-30s. That’s cope talking, because this guy had a 1.327 WHIP in the past season and I just don’t see that the Orioles needed to fit another guy like that into the mix. You’ve got Dean Kremer around already to post a slightly better WHIP but slightly worse ERA.

Adding Bassitt also apparently gives the Orioles six people lined up for their starting rotation. This will resolve between now and Opening Day in some way that I can’t currently foresee. But if all of Kyle Bradish, Trevor Rogers, Shane Baz, Eflin, and Kremer are healthy, Bassitt is bumping somebody out and it’s hard to imagine Kremer losing his spot.

One possibility is that this gives the Orioles some freedom to bring along Eflin a little more slowly after he works his way back into shape following last year’s back surgery. That’s the injury that was apparently causing him to pitch poorly. When Mike Elias updated the injury situation on his roster earlier on Wednesday, he didn’t indicate anything was amiss with Eflin, and perhaps nothing is amiss. Still, Eflin’s Opening Day readiness hinges on the most optimistic surgery recovery timeline and if they don’t have to push it, why do it?

Perhaps Bassitt himself will come along slowly. He pitched his final game of the 2025 season on November 1, the last game of the World Series. That’s more than a month less of rest than anybody who wasn’t in the postseason got. Presumably, Elias will talk a little more about his plan once this signing becomes official.

This is not the exciting starting pitching addition that any Orioles fan wanted when the offseason began. It is the starting pitching addition that we are getting as spring training opens.

In an American League East that looks competitive top to bottom, the Orioles made another move to solidify an area of need.

Baltimore and right-handed pitcher Chris Bassitt agreed to a one-year, $18.5 million contract, The Post’s Jon Heyman confirmed on Wednesday.

Bassitt gets $500,000 in incentives as part of the deal.

The Braves were among the teams thought to be interested in Bassitt, Heyman reported in January.

The soon-to-be 37-year-old stays in the AL East after spending the last three seasons with the Blue Jays following a one-year stint with the Mets.

He continued to be an innings eater in 2025, throwing at least 170 frames for the fourth straight season.

Bassitt held a 3.96 ERA (and 4.01 FIP) with 166 strikeouts as the Blue Jays won the division and came two outs shy of their third World Series crown.

He pitched 8²/₃ innings — all in relief — in the playoffs and yielded just one earned run.

An All-Star in 2021 with the A’s, Bassitt has a 3.64 ERA and a 1.246 WHIP across 11 big league seasons.

Baltimore has been active this offseason, especially in the pitching market by re-signing Zach Eflin, trading for Shane Baz and bringing in hard-throwing reliever Ryan Helsley on a two-year deal.

Ex-Mets slugger Pete Alonso came over on a five-year pact to bolster the offense.

The Orioles, with a combination of injuries and inconsistencies, finished last season with the fifth-worst pitching staff ERA at 4.60.

As of Wednesday, Fangraphs projected Baltimore to win 83.7 games — nearly three behind the Yankees — with a 53.7 percent chance to make the playoffs.

While Bassitt might not go 200 innings again as he did five years ago, he should be a stabilizing force for a rotation that needs it.

TAMPA — Some first days of spring training can double as meet and greets.

But Wednesday at Steinbrenner Field might as well have been a big family reunion — and that’s even with most of the position players still across the street at the player development complex before they report this weekend.

Though the Yankees roster continuity from 2025 to 2026 has much of the fan base up in arms over a lack of change, the players themselves do not seem to share the same worries about running it back with mostly the same group intact from their 94-win team.

“We’re running it back, because at the halfway point [last season], we thought we built a team that was going to go to the World Series and we still believe that wholeheartedly,” Jazz Chisholm Jr. said Wednesday as pitchers, catchers and WBC participants reported to camp.

“So for me, I don’t see a problem with running it back with four MVPs on your team.”

Some might argue that the problem is that those MVPs — Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, Giancarlo Stanton and Paul Goldschmidt — will play this season at the ages of 34, 30, 36 and 38, respectively.

And while Judge has won the MVP in three of the past four seasons, the only other MVP to come this decade from that group was Goldschmidt’s in 2022.

That said, the Yankees are banking on more than just that quartet to fuel another strong season that ends with a chance to play for a championship in October.

They are returning 24 of the 26 players who were on their ALDS roster last year when they got their lunch handed to them by the Blue Jays, who later came within inches of winning the World Series.

“If we play well, it’ll be a good thing,” Goldschmidt said of running it back. “If we don’t, it’ll probably be the reason that it’s said we don’t play well. For me, the expectations of this organization, whatever players are here, are to win a championship. That needs to be the mindset.

“Camp hasn’t even started yet, but everyone knows what the Yankees are about. Everyone knows the expectations the fan base has, ownership, front office, the players — this is an organization where it’s championship or bust every year. That’s not going to change whether it’s a similar group to last year or a completely new group.

“We got to prepare, we got to put in the work and that’s the No. 1 thing. What we did last year, even though it is a similar group, doesn’t matter. None of those wins carry over, none of those losses. So we’ll start from scratch and try to build a team that is going to play very well and hopefully win a championship.”

Of course, the team that walks into Steinbrenner Field this week is much different from the one that was here this time last year.

That one had Marcus Stroman and Carlos Carrasco about to make a combined 15 starts for it, Gerrit Cole about to make none, Cam Schlittler headed for Double-A, Stanton dealing with double elbow issues and Ben Rice still largely unproven as a middle-of-the-order threat.

It did not have the group of trade deadline additions — Ryan McMahon, José Caballero, Amed Rosario, David Bednar, Camilo Doval and Jake Bird — who are now back with their feet underneath them and more ingrained in the organization.

It also had what looked like a more established bullpen, even if it did not always lead to better results.

But Goldschmidt’s comments about a fresh start echoed those of Aaron Boone, who will likely repeat some version of that message when he addresses the whole team ahead of its first full-squad workout Monday.

“You’re starting anew, so there’s nothing you’re taking with you ultimately from last year,” Boone said. “It’s all a blank slate.”