Effectively Wild Episode 2141: What Did Sho Know?

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Hey, folks, this is Ben PERSON.

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And this is Meg PERSON.

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And we are here to provide a pre-podcast preamble update to what you're about to hear us talk about.

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Because some stuff that we said is slightly outdated because there have since been some developments.

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So Meg, we talked about the need for MLB to investigate Shohei Otani and Ipe Mizuhara and the business that has been going on surrounding them. And we have news on that front.

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Yes. I made such a good point that they got on it. They got on it in the past.

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Before we even publish the pod. For immediate release, March 22nd, 2024, Major League Baseball ORG statement.

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Major League Baseball ORG has been gathering information since we learned

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about the allegations involving Shohei Otane

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and Ipe Mizuhara from

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the news media. Earlier today, our Department

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of Investigations,

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DOI ORG, began their formal process investigating the matter. And they give the contact information for MLBPR

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who on for needs a beer.

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They also

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misspelled IPE's surname in this statement. So hopefully the Department of Investigations ORG can...

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They seem to have done that, yeah.

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Now that they're formally investigating, maybe they can figure out how to spell his name at some point in the investigation. Well, that's good. I think you even mentioned when we talked about this that there might be an announcementby the time people heard this episode.

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And in fact, that is the case.

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So news was dumped on a Friday in classic Friday news dump fashion.

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Now you know, and now you can listen to the rest of our conversation. Yes.

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It's effectively wild and it's wildly effective. It couldn't baseball into perfect perspective. Impressive, smart and impeccably styled. It's the wildly effective, effectively wild. It's been made a long shangle. A bad to Maine War ORG. You might hear something you never heard before.

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Hello and welcome to episode 2141 of Effectively Wild ORG, a Fangrass ORG baseball podcast brought you up. It's brought to you up.

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I don't know if I'm going to be able to recover enough to do it again.

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It's brought to you by our Patreon ORG supporters.

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You're just going to keep going.

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I'm just going to, you know what?

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Sometimes you just have to meet the moment with who you are and not who you want to be, you know, be honest.

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And I am honestly very tired.

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This is episode 2141.

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I am Meg Rowley PERSON.

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You are Ben Lindberg PERSON.

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We are here because of our generous Patreon supporters and also because I have to deliver unto you takes that I worry you will not like about Shohei Otani. Hello, Ben PERSON.

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Hello. Well, no cover up in the intro to this podcast. We're changing our intro here, just sticking with the first flubbed one.

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Yeah. you know, last time we talked, I did a stat blast about how the only things that could derail the Dodgers ORG having an all-time top of the lineup were injury or underperformance on the fields.

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I did not have on my list of possibilities, Shohei Otani's status being uncertain because millions of dollars were wired from his bank

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account to an illegal bookmaking operation. I failed to foresee that somehow. Our bold

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predictions pod isn't until next week and now major sports gambling scandal has been taken

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off the table. Yeah. It was going to be one of mine. Yeah. Gosh, I feel like I'm laughing at a

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funeral. You know, you get to that point of being tired where it mine. Yeah. Gosh, I feel like I'm laughing at a funeral.

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You know, you get to that point of being tired where it's just like, well, I guess I'm laughing now.

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This is what my body's decided to do.

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No laughing matter, Meg PERSON.

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It's really not.

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And I had so much stress, Ben PERSON, about how to talk about it, right?

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Because, well, maybe I'll start with a macro thought because that'll bring me down to earth. I do feel like there's some real loosey-goosey narrative building going on around this whole thing.

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Sometimes from media members, you know, it's like this is a pretty big deal.

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So maybe you want to stick to like, well, we know and then be very clear about speculation and also keep our tinfoil hats on the shelf.

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What we know is pretty loosey-goosey, too, because the narratives on the Otani PERSON team have been similarly sloppy and kind of confounding.

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I have a notion to put to you, Ben PERSON, and I don't think it is a particularly, like, original thought or even necessarily like a revelatory one, but one that might upset you.

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And I will offer the further caveat that I don't want to impugn your integrity just because you happen to love this man in a way that is definitely secondary to like your immediate family, but probably ranks higher than some of your friends.

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Yeah.

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No, look, I'm being clear-eyed about this, I think.

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I'm being open-minded.

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I hope, of course, that he's innocent who wouldn't want him to be innocent and completely squeaky clean.

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I mean, it's better for him, better for baseball.

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Yes. I don't know why anyone would want him to be seriously implicated here, but obviously that is a very real possibility. So here is what I think. I don't know one way or the other whether Otani PERSON himself participated in bets through an illegal bookmaker. We do not have any evidence to that end at this point. And so I think, you know, this is like the position that I know our friends, Jake and Jordan took on their podcast when they discussed this the other day. Like, until we haveevidence of that, I'm going to choose to believe that he has not participated in gambling through an illegal bookmaker. And there are kind of two questions related there, right? Did he himself bet? And then did he or Ipe ORG bet on baseball? And both of those are very important to answer. But I don't think it's useful at this juncture to speculate because particularly since this is a question that is being investigated by the United States GPE government, we're probably going to know the answer definitively one way or the other. So I'm going to wait for that answer to

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sort of come down the line.

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But one thing that we can answer right tippy top, which is Major League Baseball ORG has to investigate this. They need to launch a very thorough investigation. And I know that their ability to gather information is going to be dictated in large part by whatever timeline the DOJ is on and what they have access to may be dependent on the DOJ's findings. But gambling by people affiliated with the sport, particularly by players or managers, it's the scandal that is an existential threat to baseball. Steroids are bad. The banging scheme was bad, but both of those transgressions were at least directionallyin pursuit of winning. Now, I'm not saying that they are right, that they aren't cheating, that they're justified because they are in pursuit of winning. That's not the point I mean to make here, but they are in pursuit of winning. That's not the point I mean to make here, but they are in pursuit of winning. Gambling by parties that have the ability to have some influence on the outcome of a game may or may not be directionally aligned with winning. And so I think thatwhen everyone gets back to the U.S., because I know that the Dodgers ORG were, you know, they were in South Korea GPE, I don't know what the Dodgers were, you know, they were in South Korea. I don't know what the league representation was at that series, but I imagine it was pretty significant. I know that they are probably trying to decide how to proceed based on the statements that have come out from Otani's camp, the statements that have come out from the DOJ. But, like, at some point in the very near future, Rob Manfred PERSON, and not an underling, but Rob Manfred PERSON needs to step to a mic and say,this is about the integrity of our game. And we don't know the answer, but every single person affiliated with our game has an obligation to maintain the competitive integrity of the game. And that's true if you're a journeyman, and that's true if you're the biggest star of the game. And that's true if you're a journeyman. And that's true if you're the biggest star in the sport.

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And they have to take this very seriously.

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And like you, I hope that the answer is, you know, either that, and I don't hope he got defrauded by a close friend, but either that Otani was taken in by Ipe ORG and was the subject of theft and fraud, or in what I imagine is more likely, but still sort of well-intended timeline that he discovered that his friend had made disastrous bets was in deep and decided to help his friend out and didn't

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appreciate the legal ramifications of that decision. And then his camp upon hearing what eBay ORG had

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told ESPN was like, oh God, we have, he has potentially opened Otani PERSON up to a tremendous

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amount of legal exposure. We have to backtrack this. Whatever the

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answer is there, like the league has to take this seriously and they need to do it like right now. And I understand all the incentive they have to hope that it just goes away that they can say, well, you know, we want to defer to the Department of Justice ORG. We want to see what the results of this broader investigation are. We know that Otani PERSON's camp has apparently referred their accusation of him being a victim of fraud to some unnamed enforcement authority. I don't think that they can do that. When they opened the door for gambling to be part of the sport from an entertainment

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perspective for fans, a lot of people said, we've held this line on gambling in the past.

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And there absolutely is a distinction to be made between going to an illegal bookie and

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opening up your Draft Kings app, right?

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Those are legally distinct activities from one another in the state of California.

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Right.

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Well, I guess they're both illegal in the state of California, but they are legally distinct activities and, you know, a player betting on other sports in a state with legal sports betting is not a violation of Major League Baseball's

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rules, provided that they aren't doing it through an illegal bookmaker. But this is the biggest

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potential problem that the sport could have. And so if only to show that they appreciate the very real threat it poses to the sport and have appropriate urgency about it, they have to open an investigation. And if it takes a long time, it takes a long time. Like, I think that's fine. And it could be that by the time we post this episode, they've said, you know, we've formally opened some sort of investigation. The statements that they have issued publicly around thisquestion don't exactly close the door on it. They haven't said they're never going to look into it. They've said they're gathering information. It's like, well, isn't that just an investigation?

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Right. It's sort of a semantic difference maybe. But it's an important semantic difference.

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And I think that the commissioner needs to have like a in the best interest of baseball moment. commissioner needs to have like a in the best interest of baseball moment. And I know that his and the owners and, you know, the broader sports immediate short-term interests is Shohay Otani PERSON being this incandescent star and this huge attractor to the sport. But the real long-term best interests of baseball are served by them looking at this and really taking seriously the possibility that something nefarious happened because it seems like at the very least someone along the way got mixed up about the details of this story and it would be good for us to understand what they really are and so I think

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they ought to take a peek yeah I mean it's shocking that this has happened, especially because prior to this week, Otani PERSON had a pretty unimpeachable reputation on a personal level, admittedly in part because we didn't know much about him on a personal level.

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But pretty much the worst thing you could say about the guy is that he was one of the

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celebrities who shilled crypto. And then I can't think of anything else other than the fact that people complained about how secret of his free agency process was, which we thought was sort of ridiculous at the time.

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And then this offseason, as we have learned slightly more about him for a while there, it only made him more wholesome and likable. Oh, he has a cute dog. At least most people thought it was a cute dog. Do you think the dog was in bed with the bookie here? Do you suspect the dog?

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I don't think the dog isn't cute. I just think there's something weird about it. It's too cute, arguably.

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Some weird with that dog. Maybe the dog plays the bets. Right. But hey, he found love. He's married. Look how cute they are together.

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Well, now we know one other thing. And it is not cute. It is serious. And I don't know whether the state of his UCL ORG or

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the state of his financial transactions poses a more existential threat to his career personally.

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But at least the UCL ORG doesn't endanger his hitting. And obviously, this is bad for baseball. It's

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bad for baseball in any way, even if this turns out to be nothing more than a sad story about Ipe, Otani PERSON's

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close friend and confidant and interpreter here.

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Yeah.

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It's still bad for baseball that this is the object of everyone's attention now. The season is about to start. There were season opening games. Everyone is talking about Shohei Otani PERSON in a sports betting scandal. And that is completely fair. We should be talking about this.

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It's a pretty big deal. And I do agree with you that it should be treated as a big deal. I don't have any hard beliefs about what happened yet because I just don't know enough to know.

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Right. I haven't written an explainer because I currently can't explain anything. And neither can anyone else who

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isn't directly involved. The best we can do is sort of say what we don't know or what we need to

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know. And I have five main questions, I think, which I'll have some sub-questions. And you've

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touched on some of them there. I think number one, the big blaring, blinking red sign sort of question is,

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were there bets on baseball? Because that changes everything. That's not to say that this

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couldn't potentially be problematic and legally and reputationalally if there were no bets on baseball,

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but if there were bets on baseball, then it's in another category. Then it is an enormous threat to Otani PERSON's career to baseball's reputation. Of course, it could still be that IPE was acting alone and betting on baseball, but it really is in a separate category, right?

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Yes. And we have no evidence as of yet that there were bets on baseball. Right. Ipe ORG himself has denied it, though he certainly doesn't have a whole lot of credibility at this point. And you might say, well, if the guy is a compulsive gambler who clearly had a problem here,

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hard to resist the temptation to bet about baseball when you have inside info about the best player in the sport, right?

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Right.

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So, you know, I hope, obviously, that there were no bets on baseball here because if there weren't, then that takes this out of the category of being banned for life, probably, potentially.

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So that would be good. That would be better for Otani PERSON and better for baseball. I think the second big question is just the sequence of events from a PR perspective, why the flip-flop, right?

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Which is still just fairly baffling because to recap here, ESPN ORG and maybe other reporters come across.

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Otani or IPE's involvement here.

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They start asking questions.

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And Otani handler spokesman first says that Otani made the payments and confirms that that was the case that he made the payments to bail out IPE and then makes IPEA available for a 90-minute interview with ESPN ORG seemingly with no lawyers present or involved in the process, which is just inconceivable that that happened.

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And then after IPE talks to ESPN, then he recants and completely contradicts his story the next day.

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And Otani PERSON's spokespeople do.

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And then Otani PERSON's lawyers get involved and say, actually, no, this was a theft.

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This was not Otani PERSON just helping out a friend ill-advisedly here. And there was one explanation advanced in an ESPN article on Thursday about why these storylines changed. Just a quote from Tisha Thompson here on Thursday, a source close to Otani PERSON gave an explanation for the changing storylines. As Otani PERSON's handlers tried to determine what had happened, they initially relied solely on Mizuhara, who continued to translate for Otani PERSON.After Wednesday's season opening game in South Korea, when they were observed, so being buddy buddy, Dodgers officials called a clubhouse meeting and told players a negative story was coming later in the day. A team official said, and Mizuhara ORG apologized saying he had a gambling addiction. It was then, the official said that Otani understood for the first time what was happening and began asking questions. So this makes it seem like IPE was being even more deceptive here that he was saying one thing to them, that they trusted him, that this came as a complete shock to everyone. Ipe ORG says he's never mistranslated anything. Right. He denies

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that accusation. Yes. And also, I think there's ample evidence that Otani speaks enough English LANGUAGE to, I mean, he's not completely in the dark, right? Just from people who've been around him, he speaks English fairly proficiently and understands it fairly professionally. He doesn't speak publicly, usually he has on

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occasion, but you know, you don't want your words misconstrued if it's not your first language,

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but it's not like IPE could have just said anything in Otani PERSON's presence and he would not

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have known, right? So you can't completely play dumb there, right? But I mean, look, however

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it happened, I think this was very clearly mishandled. Yes. It's kind of shocking because, I mean, look, however it happened, I think this was very clearly mishandled.

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Yes.

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It's kind of shocking because, I mean, Otani PERSON's known for really having a tight lid on everything with his personal life.

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That's why we don't know much about him or haven't historically.

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And so the fact that they really seem to not have their story straight or their tucks in a row here when something this serious surfaced.

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Yeah.

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I mean, I mean.

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Very odd.

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I guess you could say that maybe it speaks to the level of trust that Otani PERSON had an IPE.

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That's one possible interpretation, right?

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And you could say, gosh, he trusted him so implicitly that they would just send him out there because it didn't cross his mind that Ipe might have been stealing from him the entire time or would spin some story that that wasn't true. So you could say that it backs that up. Or, of course, you could say that there was just some naivete going on here, that people just were not aware of things that they should have been aware of. Obviously, whoever was placing these bets should not have been placing these bets in this way in the state of California.

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So clearly people did not know the things that they should have known.

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But obviously some people have interpreted this, not entirely unreasonably, to show that, well, the original story was the accurate one.

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And then they realized, uh-oh, we just admitted potentially to Shohei Otani PERSON knowingly.

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Engaging in criminal activity.

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Right.

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Or potentially criminal activity, yeah.

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Illegally wiring payments to an illegal bookmaking operation, even if it was with the best motives and intent.

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Sure.

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Oh, we cannot say this.

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Uh-oh.

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We get her pivot and change our story to protect Otani PERSON here with or without

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Ipe ORG's participation, right?

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So that leads, I guess, to my third question, which is if there is a cover up here, is that then worse than the crime, if there was a crime, right?

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Because if it is changing a story to protect Otani PERSON, well, it certainly seems like a lot of this is going to come out one way or another.

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It's going to be clear.

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I guess it might be difficult to establish who was placing the bets or what was known when those payments were made with 100% certainty.

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Sure.

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But there is potentially a greater risk there if you're falsely accusing IPE of theft here.

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And assuming Ipe ORG isn't on board with falling on his sword for that, like, you know, maybe he would have been on board with falling on his sword to some extent.

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But when we're talking about going to prison, you know, potentially, I mean, not just placing illegal bets or making illegal payments, but also stealing millions of dollars from Otani PERSON.

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Like, you know, if that's not true, is he going to go along with that story?

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Right.

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So that makes you worry. Maybe if your conclusion is the most logical explanation here is, oh, Otani was just trying to do a solid for IPE here.

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Well, if IEPA isn't on board with taking the full fall for this thing, then that could be an even worse outcome for Otani PERSON. And then I think the fourth question is what you led with, which is will Manfred and MLB handle this any differently for Otani than they would for anyone else, right? And Otani has had his own rules in some ways. There is an Otani rule.

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There's literally an Otani PERSON rule.

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Yes.

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They have changed the rules of baseball to make it possible for him to be a two-way player and be in the All-Star game EVENT as a D.H. and a starter, right?

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But you cannot change the rules in this situation for him and have any kind of credibility on these matters, which is pretty important.

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And, yeah, there's some hypocrisy in the sense that MLB ORG and other sports leagues are pushing gambling constantly,

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as we talked about last time. I don't know that that would stop them from acting here because they could say, well, yes, we push legal establishments. and this was outside the bounds. So we discouraged this sort of thing.

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They could draw a line there, even if it's not a completely clear line and separation.

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You know, like you can be bombarded with ads for legal sports books in California that are not legal for you to bet on.

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Right.

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And so I think you're right that they have to follow this wherever it leads and be diligent and proactive about that. And you know, you can investigate Otani PERSON and it could turn out that there is no action that MLB ORG would or should take here legitimately. That is possible. You know, as you said, MLB ORG players and employees are allowed to

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bet legally on other sports. They just cannot bet on baseball. And of course, they cannot bet illegally. That's against the law and also baseball's laws. But, I mean, reading from the rules here, right, I mean, any player, umpire, or club or league official or employee who places bets with illegal bookmakers or agents for illegal bookmakers shall be subject to such penalty as the commissioner deems appropriate. So it's not really specified there.

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You know, if you are working for an illegal bookmaker or you are one, then there's a minimum of a

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one year suspension. If you were betting illegally on one, well, it's not entirely clear, right? then there's a minimum of a one-year suspension. If you were betting illegally on one,

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well, it's not entirely clear, right? And there's a broader clause, Rule 21 Section F LAW, which has nothing herein contained shall be construed as exclusively defining or otherwise limiting acts, transactions, practices, or conduct not to be in the best interests of baseball, and any and all other acts, transactions, practices, or conduct, not to be in the best interest of baseball, are prohibited all other acts transactions, practices, or conduct, not to be in the best interests of baseball are prohibited and shall be subject to such penalties, including permanent ineligibility, as the facts in the particular case may warrant. So that's just a pretty broad, even if you did something that wasn't strictly defined in therules or the CBA LAW, we can still decide to discipline you. And I guess it then depends maybe on the motives here. I mean, it's different, perhaps, from the commissioner's perspective, if Otani PERSON was placing bets illegally,

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or if he was paying off debts that his friend had accrued.

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Because, you know, there are like a few possible interpretations about Otani PERSON here.

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One is that he was robbed.

Speaker 01502.9s - 1518s

One is that he's the gambler himself. He's the one with the problem and he's trying to pass it off on someone else. And the other is that he was perhaps naively ill-advisedly trying to help out a friend.

Speaker 21518s - 1526.52s

Help his friend. Yeah. And, you know, if it's that one, I don't know that people would necessarily think worse of Otani PERSON, like, as a person, you know?

Speaker 01526.62s - 1529.5s

I mean, you could even think, oh, he was trying to help a friend.

Speaker 11529.66s - 1533s

And, of course, like, he might not have known the full extent.

Speaker 51533.44s - 1537.64s

Even if he was aware of the payments, he might have thought it was for something else.

Speaker 01537.72s - 1543.7s

He might not have known it was illegal bookmaking. He might have thought it wasn't the extent that it was. Who knows, right? Right.

Speaker 41543.78s - 1557.36s

But, you know, you wouldn't necessarily say ban the guy or even suspend him, maybe, if he was just trying to cover bets that someone else had made and he was trying to help him out of his situation.

Speaker 31557.36s - 1597.22s

You know, I think it is very different in terms of the justified punishment there. And morally speaking, whoever placed these bets as long as they weren't on baseball, well, many millions of sports fans have placed bets on sports and probably illegal bets on sports before betting on sports was legalized. And it is legal in most of the country now, but not in California. So the actual behavior here, when it comes to placing the bets, isn't a heinous thing. The victim of that crime is the person who's placing the bets and losing the money.And then I guess the final question for me at least is how quickly will this proceed?

Speaker 01597.68s - 1600.84s

You know, like when will we hear from Otani PERSON, if at all?

Speaker 41601.36s - 1637.48s

When will we hear from his team? When will we hear from MLB ORG? Will this be hanging over his head and the sports heads the entire season? Will it just be, well, let's sit back and wait for the IRS ORG to investigate because the IRS is looking into this too. Who knows how long things will take to win their way through the legal system and not great, obviously, for this to be an ongoing situation where the lack of clarityfuels the intrigue and the conspiracy theories and the gossip and the discussion. How does that affect the season? How does that affect Otani PERSON? Right?

Speaker 01637.6s - 1642.42s

So we've seen him go out and have great games right after learning that he has to have

Speaker 51642.42s - 1654.2s

Tommy John surgery. But how does he react to something like this? I don't know what sort of timeline we're looking at here. It's possible that we'll be stuck with this story for quite some time to come. I have so many thoughts about

Speaker 21654.2s - 1660.8s

so many of the things that you just said. So I'm going to start with the question of sort of

Speaker 51660.8s - 1665.08s

his motivations and what that, what influence or, you know,

Speaker 21665.3s - 1667.62s

relevance that might have to a potential investigation.

Speaker 01668.46s - 1676.04s

I think that the idea that you as a friend might see a very close friend and confidant

Speaker 21676.04s - 1741.96s

in a position like we have here and have a human instinct to want to help that person, and hey, guess what, you're a very wealthy professional athlete. So good news, you can actually do something about that. That as a human instinct is very legible to me. You know, I think that there's probably a distinction to be drawn here between his exposure under Major League Baseball's ORG policiesaround illegal bookmaking and gambling and whatever legal exposure he has. And I'm not going to speak to that because I'm not a lawyer. But I do know enough after being talked out of law school by my mom that, like, ignorance is not a defense under the law in the United States GPE. So, you know, whether he knew that this was illegal or not is potentially irrelevant to that question. I also know from some of the coverage that has come out in the last couple of days that it's an open question,how motivated to prosecute, you know, any of the people involved in this bookmaking operation who aren't the bookmaker would necessarily be. Right, exactly. That's my understanding. Yeah,

Speaker 51742.06s - 1756.5s

it's a legal one way or another, but whether he's going to be indicted or prosecuted for this, like they're more likely to go after the bookmaker than the clients. And if he wasn't even a client, as so much as he was helping out a client.

Speaker 21756.86s - 1767.04s

Yeah. So I don't, I don't know that that's like a Bing, Bang, Boom, closed question, right? You know, his motivation is going to probably be relevant to Major

Speaker 01767.04s - 1771.9s

League Baseball, whether it should be or not, because regardless of whether or not they open an

Speaker 21771.9s - 1777.8s

investigation, and I want to be fair to the league here and say that, you know, the fact that they

Speaker 01777.8s - 1783.44s

haven't opened one yet doesn't mean that they won't open one. And, you know, again, everybody's

Speaker 21783.44s - 1785.94s

coming back to the U.S. for the start of the season. So it could be that we see movement on that question very quickly, right, again everybody's coming back to the US GPE for the start of the season so it

Speaker 51785.94s - 1790.14s

could be that we see movement on that question very quickly right once everybody's backstates

Speaker 21790.14s - 1803.48s

so I don't I don't want to be unfair but I suspect that he and his people haven't necessarily done themselves a favor here by having the story change and have the story go from one of

Speaker 01803.48s - 1805.38s

I was helping out a friend.

Speaker 21805.38s - 1827.68s

I didn't trust him to basically use this money to cover the debt, which if you have a friend with a gambling addiction, I also think is like a pretty understandable reaction, right, to say, I'm going to do it so that I know that the debt is covered and that you are not, you know, using this money to then place further bets with the bookie.

Speaker 01827.86s - 1828.32s

Okay, fine.

Speaker 21828.86s - 1841.4s

But now you've shifted your story from I was helping out a friend to that friend stole from me. And, you know, there is a, I guess, a scenario where both of those things can be true simultaneously, right?

Speaker 01841.4s - 1846.16s

It could be that Otani PERSON facilitated the wire transfers that we know about

Speaker 31846.16s - 1852.2s

that ESPN ORG has reported on. And then in the course of either, you know, hearing back the details

Speaker 01852.2s - 1859.76s

that IPE shared with ESPN ORG or, you know, further inquiries from other media outlets, something

Speaker 31859.76s - 1865.62s

in the information shifted. And maybe he's like, well, I know this number. And now I'm hearing

Speaker 21865.62s - 1871.4s

this number. Right. There were nine payments. So he might have been involved in some and not

Speaker 51871.4s - 1875.88s

others potentially. And not others, right? So, and I know that there's been a lot of speculation about

Speaker 21875.88s - 1882.4s

how easy or difficult it would be for EPA ORG to have, I feel weird addressing him by his first

Speaker 51882.4s - 1885.76s

name, but that's like how he always gets talked about. I know.

Speaker 21893.22s - 1900.72s

That's an interesting element to this is that, like, for most players, you would not know the name of their interpreter, right? Even if they had an interpreter or, like, whoever they're sort of, you know, person in an IPE-like role who takes care of other things for them, you wouldn't.

Speaker 11901.02s - 1906.26s

They wouldn't be, like, kind character in, in their lives publicly. But

Speaker 01906.26s - 1912s

because we know so little about Otani's personal life and because Ipe ORG and he have just been

Speaker 41912s - 1918.04s

inseparable, right? Like, it's, it's a tandem duo. It's like, Shohei and Ipe ORG, right? Like,

Speaker 31918.64s - 1924.12s

that's why, you know, I think there's just that personal dynamic here that this person is

Speaker 41924.12s - 1925.94s

known to everyone in a way that

Speaker 31925.94s - 1927.78s

typically a person in this role would not be.

Speaker 51928.12s - 1928.3s

Right.

Speaker 21928.46s - 1949.7s

Okay. Hold on to that thought because I'm going to circle back to that. So, you know, I know there's been a lot of speculation publicly like, oh, you know, banks have all these procedures. And it's like they do have procedures for moving money. But like, I think people are kind of, and I don't know.I obviously don't know the specifics of how Otani PERSON's finances are structured and who might be, you know, authorized to move money on his behalf.

Speaker 31949.7s - 1959.18s

But like, I think that it's useful for people to remember that like the way that rich people, like, fabulously rich people's finances operate are very different from ours.

Speaker 01959.78s - 1959.86s

Right.

Speaker 11960.02s - 1971.32s

And so, you know, I, which isn't to say one way or the other, but I just like, I think that a lot of people are thinking about like, well, if I, you know, sent $500,000 to a bookie, my spouse would know.

Speaker 31971.38s - 1976s

And I'm like, think about the first part of that sentence and tell me if you actually know how that process would actually work.

Speaker 11976s - 1977.2s

Yeah, I was going to say that too, right.

Speaker 31977.28s - 1979.36s

I don't want to be polyunish about this.

Speaker 21979.54s - 1982.16s

Everything is completely plausible and on the table.

Speaker 31982.62s - 1989.82s

But for a person like this who's been famous and rich, you know, by normal person standards

Speaker 01989.82s - 1996.28s

for a very long time and from a very young age, you know, you might delegate things that

Speaker 51996.28s - 1998.18s

you or I might not, right?

Speaker 11998.26s - 2000.14s

You just, you have people for that.

Speaker 22000.82s - 2007.26s

And yeah, wiring this amount of money, it's not as simple as paying someone for food on Venmo or whatever.

Speaker 52007.44s - 2008.04s

I get that.

Speaker 12008.38s - 2017.44s

But I would not be surprised to learn that there were processes in place where people, perhaps including IPE, just handled those things for O'Connor PERSON.

Speaker 02017.44s - 2037.62s

And he's not checking his balance necessarily because it's just like, I mean, he made $65 million last year. He's making $65 million again this year, even with the $2 million from the Dodgers because of the endorsement deals that we mentioned the other day. So, and it wasn't even a one-time $4.5 million payment. It was dribs and drabs, you know.

Speaker 22037.62s - 2037.76s

Yeah.

Speaker 42037.94s - 2048.7s

Although, to be clear, the size of those dribs and drabs does mean that somebody somewhere was scrutinizing those dribs and drabs because, you know, it takes a minute for bigger amounts to clear your account.

Speaker 52049.2s - 2050.02s

Yes, it's true.

Speaker 42050.52s - 2061.12s

You know, we don't, we just don't know what the situation of the structure of those accounts, their legal disposition, what his authorization was to move money within them.

Speaker 22061.12s - 2061.36s

Yeah.

Speaker 42061.36s - 2064.66s

If there were standing instructions that would have indicated they don't need to call back.

Speaker 02064.74s - 2070.86s

Like there's all kinds of stuff that could have facilitated the potential for fraud.

Speaker 22070.92s - 2071.72s

So I just don't know.

Speaker 02071.82s - 2079.2s

I don't know if he committed a crime or not. But I think the fact that the story changed is going to require scrutiny from baseball

Speaker 22079.2s - 2088.6s

when it does an investigation and might diminish whatever, you know, goodwill he would have engendered by

Speaker 02088.6s - 2096.02s

trying to do his close friend and confid on a solid when he's now, his people are accusing

Speaker 22096.02s - 2100.48s

that individual or fraud. So it muddies the waters on that question, I think, in a pretty

Speaker 52100.48s - 2112.96s

meaningful way. Yeah. Yeah. Look, do I think Otani PERSON is secretly a degenerate gambler? I would say less likely than not, but then I didn't think he was secretly married either. So we don't really know these people.

Speaker 22112.96s - 2146.62s

We don't know these guys. Right. This is the thing that we always say on this pod, like, we just don't know these guys. And so I think we unfortunately have to leave open the possibility that the worst case is, you know, it's not impossible that it be true. I do want to acknowledge here that like, regardless of whether or not there was a fraud, regardless of whether or not everyone involved had full clear-eyed understanding of the laws and we're like, yeah, we're going to break them anyway, or what we're truly ignorantto the situation. Like, this is a sad story.

Speaker 52146.9s - 2149.04s

Yeah, just on a personal level. Yeah.

Speaker 22149.04s - 2171.18s

Yeah, and it does sound like if we take at face value that IPE was gambling to some degree that resulted in meaningful debts, which means he was gambling a lot because I'm sure that he wasn't losing all the time, right? a lot because I'm sure that he wasn't losing all the time, right? You know, this is a person who does need help and I can understand a friend wanting to offer that help and like gambling

Speaker 02171.18s - 2178.38s

addiction is very real and it can ruin people's lives. It's ruined his life. Like, whether he goes

Speaker 12178.38s - 2189.14s

to, whether he goes to jail or not, like, he was never going to work in baseball again, right? This relationship that is clearly important to both him and Otani PERSON is, at the very least, rendered

Speaker 32189.14s - 2193.12s

very different now, you know, if not just severed entirely.

Speaker 02193.94s - 2196.3s

And, like, that's very sad.

Speaker 22196.6s - 2218.24s

And, you know, I think the, you're right to say that once the question is answered in a way that everyone feels satisfied by, was there any betting on baseball at all, whether it was IPE or somebody else? Was there any betting on baseball? If that question is answered, no, no betting on baseball occurred. It really was just what? It was

Speaker 52218.24s - 2224.6s

supposed to be basketball and the NFL ORG and like college football. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I don't want to be,

Speaker 22224.6s - 2243.04s

I'm about to say a thing that is going to shock our listeners. I don't want to be unfair to draft kings or, you know, or any of these other sports books or the league's partners or whatever. Like, this didn't happen under a sanctioned, with a sanctioned sports book, right? This was an illegal bookie, you know.

Speaker 12243.92s - 2254.12s

It is also just, as an aside, like, man, rich people in illegal bookies, what's up with that? What's going on with you guys? Like, from time immemorial. I don't want to just like grab this as a way to

Speaker 22254.12s - 2312.16s

like zats the league on a pet issue, but like, regardless of the disposition of the sports book, like this is part of what people are worried about when it comes toMLB, the NFL, the NBA ORG, whatever, you know, going open arms into gambling. Like, this is something that gets away from people. And it doesn't get away from everyone. And there are plenty of people who, like, this is the stupid thing they spend money on. And they have a fun time and it's fine. And like, they can pay their bills and they're not like gambling away their kids college funds like you know i don't want to overstate the case but it can get people you know it can get away from people and it can become a very real problem in their lives and this is a super dramatic like example of that but it doesn'tyou know most of the people who have their lives and finances wrecked by, you know, gambling addictions, it's not a juicy story. We don't hear about them.

Speaker 52312.16s - 2317.82s

Yeah, and it's legal in many of those cases. And that has happened in other sports, too,

Speaker 22317.92s - 2323.28s

where there have been scandals and it was going through one of the legally sanctioned sports books,

Speaker 02323.44s - 2326.3s

right? So they're more likely to flag that sort of thing.

Speaker 42326.38s - 2330.46s

You're more likely to be caught maybe unless you then get caught up in a federal investigation.

Speaker 32331.08s - 2335.84s

But yeah, your life can easily be ruined either way, whether it's legal or illegal.

Speaker 02335.84s - 2341.46s

And so I think that it's worth the league trying to sit with that for a minute.

Speaker 32341.84s - 2346.52s

And, you know, if this all gets to a place where it comes

Speaker 42346.52s - 2354.94s

out that they and importantly, like the DOJ, sorry, as an aside, like, gosh, for his lawyer's

Speaker 32354.94s - 2359.9s

sake, they're better have been a fraud because there's like an active DOJ investigation. They're

Speaker 22359.9s - 2369.4s

just out here alleging fraud. Like, anyway. That aside, you know, I think that, you know, let's say that at the end of all of this,

Speaker 42370.12s - 2375.94s

the DOJ completes its investigation, the league does its own due diligence and investigation.

Speaker 02375.94s - 2388.98s

And at the end of it, we come to learn that no one bet on baseball, Otani PERSON, in a moment of tenderness toward a friend, tried to pay off debts, and then, yeah, maybe

Speaker 22388.98s - 2405.9s

backtracked with a bogus story, but did that because he was worried he was suddenly opening himself up to legal liability. He's not a gambler. This is the, we have a complete understanding of the universe of bets that were placed, the league levies either a suspension

Speaker 02405.9s - 2412.7s

or in all likelihood of fine, right? There is precedent, you know, as Ken Rosenthal and Andy McCullough

Speaker 22412.7s - 2417.36s

pointed out in their story at The Athletic Today ORG, that there have been instances in the past where

Speaker 02417.36s - 2423.68s

baseball players have placed bets with illegal bookmakers that were not on baseball and they

Speaker 22423.68s - 2425.06s

didn't have to serve a suspension.

Speaker 52425.26s - 2428.78s

They did pay an undisclosed fine. Jared Kosart in 2015.

Speaker 22429.16s - 2439.76s

Yeah. For violating the rule because there is a very clear rule, right? But that, you know, it didn't result in him being banned from baseball. It didn't result in him having to serve a suspension. He paid a fine and that was it.

Speaker 02440.12s - 2449.86s

Let's imagine that all of that comes to pass and they either, fine Otani PERSON or, you know, maybe he serves a suspension for having changed his story, whatever.

Speaker 22450.44s - 2478.72s

Like, at the heart of this is still this issue that, like, you have, you know, a business, the legal version of which is still potentially quite damaging to people. And major league baseball is sitting in bed with it, you know. And I don't imagine that IPE was ignorant to the fact that this was a violation on the rule, if only because I know that the league gives like a very stern talk in spring training every year around the rules about this because they desperately want to avoid a scandal.

Speaker 32479.28s - 2480.64s

Sorry, guys, didn't work.

Speaker 12480.92s - 2482.16s

Needed a better chat, I guess.

Speaker 22482.36s - 2508.36s

But there's still going to be an unease and attention here. And even if by some stroke of luck, the league avoids the worst case scenario that their best, most popular player has been placing bets on baseball, right? That's the worst case scenario. They're able to, let's say that they're able to avoid that, which to this point, I have no reason to think that they won't at least be able to avoid that.

Speaker 32508.88s - 2513.14s

You're brushing up against a ghost, because it's going to happen eventually, you know,

Speaker 22513.6s - 2520.7s

and it might happen with someone who has a better understanding of all the rules in place,

Speaker 02520.7s - 2528.4s

does a better job covering it up, is more you know central figure is the original subject

Speaker 22528.4s - 2547.3s

of the investigation right i think part of what comforts me in this if as someone who is really hoping that otani's nose is mostly clean and at least the betting part of this it is comforting that he was not the original source of the investigation subject of the investigation it sounds like that was very much the bookmaker and then IPEBRI extension.

Speaker 32547.66s - 2557.38s

But it's not a good situation. And the idea that it is going to be avoided forever seems desperately naive to me.

Speaker 22557.76s - 2565.96s

And that's a really big problem. Like this is, I can't think of a more startling shot across the bow if that's what

Speaker 32565.96s - 2573.48s

this ends up being, then it involving literally Shohei Otani PERSON. Right? Like, oh boy, it's a real

Speaker 22573.48s - 2578.36s

mess. And like opening days next week. And this is what we're talking about. And we're going to

Speaker 32578.36s - 2583.88s

be talking about it until there are more conclusive answers. And now I want to circle back to

Speaker 22583.88s - 2628.02s

the idea of Otani PERSON not talking about this. And then I will stop talking because I candidly can't remember half the things that I've said. I can appreciate how particularly in a moment like this where the story has changed, there have been accusations leveled of fraud. There's this counter narrative where like, Ot you might have a little like crimes, that his lawyers may have said, shut up, dude. Don't say anything else.But part of the problem with his prior sort of lack of disclosure and that persisting into this moment is that some of the conspiracy theoriesthat have grown up around this in just the last couple of days are unhinged.

Speaker 32629.12s - 2640.92s

And the problem is that since the story has changed, there's just going to be a slice of the baseball going public that forever thinks that this guy definitely bet on baseball and that Ipe ORG took the fall for it.

Speaker 22641.28s - 2642.8s

I know. That is a shame, right?

Speaker 52642.92s - 2645.34s

I mean, there will always be some sort of

Speaker 22645.34s - 2651.28s

Michael Jordan PERSON gambling conspiracy sort of thing associated with him, even if there's seemingly

Speaker 02651.28s - 2669.76s

no basis to it, which stinks. I mean, it's possible that this will blow over eventually that people will kind of forget it. Like, LeBron PERSON had an associate who was embroiled with an illegal bookmaker, and it just wasn't connected to LeBron PERSON and it's not really an ongoing concern, although you didn't have payments, I think, coming from LeBron's

Speaker 22669.76s - 2673.86s

account, which would make it a little bit different. It does make it different.

Speaker 52674.46s - 2685.08s

Yeah. Just, I guess, a few final thoughts. So one is that I wouldn't underestimate the extent to which rich people can be clueless about money. Sure. Oh, money. Sure.

Speaker 42685.28s - 2685.64s

Oh, yeah.

Speaker 32686s - 2687s

Yes. I agree.

Speaker 52687s - 2703.26s

He didn't grow up rich, right? But he has, you know, been well provided for since he was a kid. If it is true as multiple sources, not just Mizuhara, but unspecified multiple sources have told the SPN ORG that he doesn't bet. He doesn't bet on baseball.

Speaker 42703.26s - 2705.38s

There was no bet on baseball here, right?

Speaker 02705.4s - 2709.76s

His former teammates say he didn't even pay attention to other sports, et cetera, et cetera, right?

Speaker 42709.94s - 2712.84s

Again, there could be things that no one knew.

Speaker 02712.84s - 2719.8s

But I think it would not shock me to learn that he has just been so baseball focused.

Speaker 42720.54s - 2726.58s

It doesn't seem like money has been the top priority for him as he has left money on the table at various points in his career.

Speaker 52726.74s - 2731.92s

If he was just like, look, I'm just going to work out and play baseball and do my thing.

Speaker 42732.3s - 2733.52s

Have my secret wife.

Speaker 02733.88s - 2734.96s

You have my secret wife.

Speaker 22735.16s - 2737.62s

And then you take care of the money stuff, right?

Speaker 12737.8s - 2738.12s

Yes.

Speaker 22738.94s - 2739.46s

You trust it.

Speaker 12739.7s - 2741.4s

He pay implicitly.

Speaker 22741.68s - 2741.84s

Right.

Speaker 42741.84s - 2790.98s

And, you know, that there was some power to do this. I don't know whether it's a coincidence that the two payments ESPN saw were made in September and October when Otani was getting surgery and just recuperating from surgery. But yeah, look, I again, don't want to be gullible here, but it really would not surprise me to learn that there was some possibility to slip this past Otani PERSON, that he was not keeping a close eye on this. I've seen some people question, well, why wouldan interpreter get such a line of credit from this bookmaker? You know, he was making $300,000 to $500,000, it sounds like, but why would they let him get this deeply in debt? I think that could be because maybe he played up his association with Otani. Maybe he said, O'Tani ORG will bail me out.

Speaker 02791.58s - 2795.6s

Maybe the bookmaker hoped he'd have leverage over O'Tani ORG.

Speaker 52795.76s - 2800.9s

Yeah, it could be. It was reported by ESPN that the bookmaker, Matthew Boyer PERSON, allegedly

Speaker 02800.9s - 2805.12s

liked talking about O'Tani ORG to other clients, right?

Speaker 42805.24s - 2809.82s

Right. Right. Might have fabricated the degree of connection there potentially.

Speaker 02810.36s - 2817.14s

Also, you could say that if Otani PERSON was the one placing the bets indirectly, like, why would he ever have gotten so deeply into debt?

Speaker 22817.26s - 2821.48s

Right. Because, like, he has a lot of money, you know? That thought did occur to me too. Yeah.

Speaker 52822.28s - 2839.4s

But, yes, I had the same sort of thought you did that it would obviously be far worse if there is actually something really actionable here legally or from baseball's perspective. But it's still bad if the only upshot of this is that IPE's life is ruined and

Speaker 42839.4s - 2848.36s

people will always suspect Otani PERSON of having done something or suspect MLB of covering something up because Otani's the golden goose, right?

Speaker 32848.48s - 2848.78s

Yes.

Speaker 42848.98s - 2853.58s

And some people, you know, misinformation is a problem in many spheres.

Speaker 12854.02s - 2855.9s

And that could potentially be a problem.

Speaker 32855.9s - 2861.02s

But obviously, we're a ways away from knowing what is misinformation here.

Speaker 12861.64s - 2866.72s

I'm glad you brought the question of like why would he extend credit like this

Speaker 32866.72s - 2872.4s

because I mean, I do think that the potential explanation that I offered and I want to say again,

Speaker 12872.4s - 2876.84s

like I don't know, but that is a potential explanation that occurs to me. Like that's part of why

Speaker 32876.84s - 2882.62s

this is all a big problem, right? Because you don't want someone who's an illegal bookmaker having

Speaker 02882.62s - 2888.18s

any point of leverage on one of your players, right, or a manager or anyone.

Speaker 22888.46s - 2894.5s

Like, you know, that's a potential weakness that could have really profound implications for the sport.

Speaker 32894.62s - 2897.6s

So, like, that's bad, you know, it's bad regardless.

Speaker 22897.6s - 2908.54s

And part of why I imagine Major League Baseball ORG, in addition to the legality of it, is trying to make sure that these kinds of associations don't occur.

Speaker 02908.76s - 2923.08s

Because they don't want someone who isn't, you know, a sanctioned, regulatable actor having a point of pressure on someone who can affect the results on the fields.

Speaker 12923.26s - 2925.32s

It's potentially quite bad.

Speaker 32925.92s - 2928.76s

It's, I think it's bad regardless, you know?

Speaker 22928.96s - 2930.38s

Like, it seems bad regardless.

Speaker 52930.38s - 2932.48s

There's no happy ending to this story, really.

Speaker 22932.6s - 2977.5s

It's just degrees of damaging. And, you know, it's a tricky thing to talk about. I mean, we've tried to keep it late, and I had, like, a giggle fit at the beginning because I'm exhausted. But, you know, it's a hard thing to talk about because I don't, these are very serious, like the potential, some of the potentialscenarios here come with very heavy accusations, career altering, life altering accusations. And I don't want to be Pollyanna-ish, but I don't want to assume that, like, Otani PERSON is some, you know, calculating gambling fiend who threw his best friend under the bus because his bets got exposed, right?

Speaker 32986.14s - 2986.16s

Like, I don't want to think that of anyone without evidence, you know, as a, I don't want to, like, get to, you know, on high horsey,

Speaker 02990.82s - 2995.88s

but, like, as a media member, I do think I have a responsibility to, like, say what I know to be true and then be responsible with drawing conclusions between facts that we have in front of us.

Speaker 32995.88s - 3001.38s

So it's a hard thing to talk about because you don't want to, we've gotten got before, right?

Speaker 23009.24s - 3051.24s

thought before, right? We've we've assumed people who seem charming and loquacious and kind are, you know, they end up being jerks. We assume the performance that seems spectacular, but naturally born, you know, turned out that it was because of, at least in part, because of steroids. We just thought that everyone on that Astros ORG team was above board, right? Like, we've been got before. And so I don't want to get got, but I also don't want to assume the worst in people.And so it's a weird thing to navigate. And as we said, at the end of all of this, regardless of how the facts sort of solidify and we come to know them, like, this dude's life is ruined. And that sucks. So, like, it's a, you know, I, this dude's life is ruined. And that sucks. So like it's a, you know, I just want to think about the pants again, Ben PERSON.

Speaker 33051.72s - 3051.84s

Yeah.

Speaker 23055.48s - 3060.42s

Because they were the perfect fun little scandal. And this isn't fun. This is potentially like pretty debilitating to the sport.

Speaker 13060.72s - 3062.38s

And I don't want to overstate the case.

Speaker 03062.5s - 3062.64s

You know,

Speaker 23062.68s - 3085.76s

I think that will baseball survive if it comes out that like Otani PERSON was actually the one placing the bets and they were on baseball and we can draw a bunch of conclusions from that. I mean, like, yeah, but it will be very damaging to the sport. I don't want to underrate the degree to which that would be a real problem and really diminish public confidence in baseball as a recreational pursuit.

Speaker 33088.26s - 3093.86s

So, yeah, I don't know, man. And again, I don't want to muddy the waters too much between like this thing that is obviously

Speaker 23093.86s - 3115.8s

illegal going to an illegal bookie versus this thing that is, I think, legal in many places, but ethically dubious, which is like legalized sports betting. Like, those are distinct and like we should. But also you create an environment where everybody wants to bet. And then it's like sometimes they're going to pursue extra legal means to do that. You're not responsible for it, but it is an anticipatable problem, right?

Speaker 33115.96s - 3117.94s

So I don't know, man.

Speaker 23118.18s - 3131.38s

I didn't want to have to be thinking about this right before opening day or ever. But here we are. This is, These are the weird, twisted, confusing facts, quote unquote, that we've been presented with. So this is a

Speaker 53131.38s - 3168.76s

developing story and it has developed slightly more just as we've been speaking here because ESPN's Tisha Thompson PERSON, who's been all over this, has published another piece, and it's just sort of a tick-talk from her reporting perspective of the way this went down over the past several days. I would love to have a count of all communications that happened here, but obviously, reporter was privy to only some. It's really just kind of a clarification of the sequence of events and things that we already knew and it definitely doesn't clear up everything else.

Speaker 43168.96s - 3225.88s

There's still some stuff that is sort of hard to square here, but I guess it pushes me ever so slightly toward the Otani was totally taken advantage of and manipulated by Ipe ORG explanation. It sort of sucks because anything that seemingly comes closer to clearing Otani must almost by necessity make Mizuhara ORG look even worse, not just a degenerate, but a deceptive degenerate, which would probably make Otani PERSON feel worse about the dissolution of that relationship, even if it made him less likely to be punished. But I'm talking minor movement of my mental New York Times ORG needle that's alternating wildly among the various explanations here.The main new details or takeaways from this report are that the spokesperson for Otani PERSON was a crisis communications spokesman who had just been hired and who was just getting up to speed with information from Otani's camp, which...

Speaker 53225.88s - 3226.82s

Doing a great job, bud.

Speaker 23226.82s - 3227.18s

Yeah.

Speaker 13227.44s - 3231.64s

Just really managing this crisis really, really well.

Speaker 33232.48s - 3234.28s

What I work with this person again.

Speaker 13234.76s - 3254.26s

So that's one bit of news here. The other bit, which is kind of what we inferred or speculated was a possibility, is that Otani's spokesperson and a Dodgers ORG official is maintaining that all of the communication during this period was happening through IPE and that

Speaker 03254.26s - 3267.8s

reporters Nesbel Ello, Otani PERSON's agent, everyone was trying to catch up on what was happening here through IPE and it's hard to imagine how that was allowed to happen.

Speaker 33268.1s - 3271.1s

I mean, I know that there's a language barrier here.

Speaker 03271.24s - 3298.26s

I know that Otani and Ipe ORG go way, way back. But when IPE is at the heart of this story and is the subject of such suspicion, I don't know how you just let him handle all of the communication here. It's not even clear whether Otani PERSON was present or involved in these conversations or whether IPE was just relaying what Otani PERSON said or supposedly said, right?

Speaker 43298.26s - 3303.98s

And so the spokesman quoted Otani PERSON to the reporter as saying, yeah, I sent several large payments.

Speaker 03304.12s - 3325.52s

That's the maximum amount I could send. But it's not at all clear that he actually said that or whether Mizuhara just said that he said that. Right. Right. And then I guess one, yeah, there's more details in here about, you know, Ipe is saying Otani PERSON doesn't like gambling. He's always wondered why anyone gambles.

Speaker 43325.64s - 3327.88s

He has no interest in gambling, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 03328.04s - 3354.78s

You know, take that for what it's worth, which is not a whole lot, right? He says his wife, Ipe ORG's wife, wasn't aware of any of this even, right? And according to this, Andrew Friedman stood up at that Dodgers team meeting after the game and said that Otani had helped to cover Ipe ORG's losses. I wonder if the Dodgers ORG became aware of this during that game? Is there any way they could or should have known about this sooner?

Speaker 53355.28s - 3388.38s

On the way back to the hotel, Otani PERSON starts asking questions about what had been said in the clubhouse. The Otani spokesman told ESPN, and that's when his representatives say Otani told them he didn't recognize Mizuhara ORG's version of the events. According to the spokesman, Otani discovered for the first time Wednesday that money was missing from his account. Otani PERSON's representatives had continued to rely on Mizu Har to communicate with Otani while they were dealing with the situation, and Mizuhar did not tell Otani what was happening. That's the story. Ipe was lying. Shohay PERSON didn't know is what the spokesman says.

Speaker 23388.72s - 3401.28s

It's a declarative statement. Put it that way, right? Like it's very definitive. I did not know and did not participate in the wire transfer part of it, right? Like that's the version of events

Speaker 53401.28s - 3406.06s

that his camp is putting forth. Yes. In the initial version of events,

Speaker 43406.24s - 3408.86s

IPE said that Otani PERSON had made the payments,

Speaker 53409s - 3414.14s

but that he didn't know who they were to or that it was illegal

Speaker 23414.14s - 3419.1s

and that neither of them had considered the implications of it potentially being illegal.

Speaker 53419.1s - 3428.28s

So at the very best, like Otani PERSON was way too trusting here clearly in retrospect and

Speaker 23428.28s - 3431.96s

why were they still relying on it on misoara PERSON to

Speaker 53431.96s - 3436.72s

yeah that's pretty baffling right i mean yeah why was he still serving as an interpreter

Speaker 23436.72s - 3443.02s

if if there was this potential for malfeasance there's a language barrier here obviously

Speaker 53443.02s - 3447.16s

they're in south korea They're not where the agent is. There's a time difference.

Speaker 43447.34s - 3448.64s

I get all the complications.

Speaker 13448.64s - 3449.68s

Yes, that's fair.

Speaker 43449.98s - 3450.94s

And maybe this speaks.

Speaker 23451.24s - 3451.56s

Yeah.

Speaker 53451.7s - 3454.26s

I mean, I don't know if it's not wise, certainly.

Speaker 23454.92s - 3460.02s

But it could be an explanation that is, you know, that makes some amount of sense.

Speaker 53460.32s - 3475.54s

Ipe ORG was trusted so implicitly that even though he should have recused himself here and they should have said, let's talk to someone else who is not directly involved in this matter, that maybe it just didn't cross anyone's mind that he might have done something so nefarious, right?

Speaker 13476.2s - 3481.22s

That the wool was pulled over everyone's eyes. That is, I guess, what they're going with.

Speaker 23481.66s - 3489.12s

Yeah, I don't know what to make of the fact that it's not known yet what enforcement authority is potentially investigating those claims.

Speaker 13489.32s - 3493.1s

But I don't know that us not knowing that really says anything one way or the other.

Speaker 23493.26s - 3504.84s

I don't know. I also think that we like we feel like we know how these things go down because we watch TV and then we realize that we don't actually. Like there's probably just the one-office investigating naval crime, Ben PERSON.

Speaker 03505s - 3509.32s

It's probably not all over the world, you know, just to call back a Patreon ORG episode.

Speaker 33509.9s - 3510.46s

I don't know.

Speaker 13510.52s - 3513.32s

How do you feel about the tone that we've struck over the course of this hour?

Speaker 33513.32s - 3514.68s

It feels uneven to me.

Speaker 13514.8s - 3515.28s

I don't know.

Speaker 23515.32s - 3515.76s

It's very.

Speaker 13516.32s - 3516.6s

Yeah.

Speaker 53516.84s - 3522.12s

I think everyone has sort of been swinging back and forth between what they want to be true,

Speaker 13522.28s - 3527.64s

what could potentially be true as we learn little details piece by piece.

Speaker 53528.24s - 3536.8s

The end of this latest article is just the exchange with IPE and with the reporter here where Ipe ORG says,

Speaker 13537.04s - 3540.62s

obviously this is all my fault, everything I've done, I'm ready to face all the consequences.

Speaker 23541.18s - 3542.9s

When did Otani PERSON become aware of the situation?

Speaker 43543.26s - 3571.2s

They told me I can't answer anything, he says. Otani PERSON's representatives? Are they representing you? No. Are you taking any form of payment to tell me these things? No. Have you made any kind of agreement to say these things? No. You're doing this of your own volition and free will? Yes. Did you bet on baseball? No. Did you lie to show? Hey, yes. ESPN asks if he has ever purposely misinformed Otani PERSON while interpreting the issues the reporter is asking about. Misuhorah PERSON says, no, I have never done that. So if he wasn't

Speaker 53571.2s - 3595.34s

misinforming Otani, I guess he could have just not been informing him at all. That would be one way that that particular story wouldn't be a lie. He says he doesn't misinform. He doesn't mistranslate. Again, it's still unclear, I think, whether Otani PERSON was actually present in any of the communications that anyone was having with his camp or whether it was solely going through the person who may have been responsible for everything.

Speaker 43595.94s - 3601.28s

So I guess one way they could go with this based on this narrative, if it turns out that

Speaker 33601.28s - 3608.58s

Otani himself ever did acknowledge making the payments and that that wasn't a total fiction concocted by IPE.

Speaker 43608.8s - 3625.72s

You could maybe say something like he made the payments, but he was told that it was to repay a loan or for legal bets and that the massive theft they're alleging now will be more about Ipe having coaxed those payments out of Otani PERSON under false pretenses than it is about

Speaker 53625.72s - 3632.06s

Ipe sending the wires himself without Otani PERSON's knowledge. Clearly a lot here that still doesn't

Speaker 03632.06s - 3648.06s

totally add up or at least it's basically malpractice on the part of some people involved here. And I'm sure there's more that's going to come out. So we will probably keep having to return to this story as it unfolds. Yeah.

Speaker 23648.36s - 3694.6s

I mean, it's definitely not going to go anywhere, you know, I think. And I think the unfortunate thing is that, you know, part of what you are trying to do when you're a person in this kind of position is avoid any appearance of impropriety, even if there wasn't real impropriety or there wasn't, you know, there wasn't impropriety that came with like an intent to gamble on the sport you're a star in, right? These kinds of things linger and people have long memories around them and the parts that we end up knowing to be true blend with weird conspiratorial theories, you know, I think if you ask a lot of people, they still think Jose Altuve PERSON was wearing a buzzer.Yeah.

Speaker 33695.06s - 3695.26s

Right?

Speaker 23695.26s - 3770.72s

And so, you know, I think that just to circle all the way back and then I might finally be done with my fragmented thoughts, at least for now. You know, this is part of why creating an environment where you are saying there are versions of betting that are good and fine, and then there are these ones over here that are illegal, it's hard to maintain those barriers. And I get that there are real reasons why you might be comfortable with one and not the other, but you're opening the door to the potential for nonsense. I don't know that's a good idea.You know, I take a pretty conservative view on this stuff, which is like one of the first times in my life I've ever said that. You know, I think that it would be fine for these leagues to just say, you can't bet on sports. It doesn't matter what sport. It doesn't matter if it's a soccer qualifier halfway around the world. It doesn't matter. It's just not worth it to us. And part of what you're getting paid a big salary to do is to sacrifice your participation in this. If you want to have a fantasy football league, you know, if you want to do like those kind ofinterpersonal things that might have a little bit of money, fine. But any like bet that you would need to open a draft king's app to place you can't do it because it's

Speaker 03770.72s - 3777.46s

just not worth it and i know that i'm i that that is a minority opinion you know just like i think

Speaker 23777.46s - 3818.08s

it would be fine for the baseball writers association of america to tell baseball writers you can't vote but you can't bet on sports just sorry you're out you're done like you can't. Or if you do, you can't be in this body. I think that there are lines that are really worth maintaining so that you guard against not only actual impropriety, but the perception of impropriety. Because like we said, this is just going to follow him now. I don't know that it will matter what the ultimate conclusion to whatever investigation MLB ORG does. Like, this is just going to be a thing that people associate with this guy now.And it probably won't be the only thing and it might not be the biggest thing. But we still joke about Michael Jordan PERSON, like he said.

Speaker 33818.52s - 3824.7s

So I guess we'll really know things are bad when he gets in, when he like tries to go play for the Bulls ORG. Right.

Speaker 53824.94s - 3825.26s

Really? Yes. Really?

Speaker 43825.26s - 3825.56s

Yes.

Speaker 23825.78s - 3828.38s

I'm like the 9,000th person to make that joke.

Speaker 53828.88s - 3832.42s

Especially because he's married to a basketball player now. That's right.

Speaker 43832.92s - 3839.08s

Yeah, in the NFL ORG, I think players are allowed to bet on other sports, but they're not allowed

Speaker 03839.08s - 3842.38s

to bet on other sports from team facilities.

Speaker 13842.38s - 3848.52s

Yeah. Their rules are even more baroque and weird than the MLB ORG rules are.

Speaker 53848.52s - 3855.58s

Many NFL ORG players have been suspended for gambling violations because they didn't observe or weren't aware of that particular clause, right?

Speaker 13855.64s - 3858.84s

You could just walk out the door of the team facility and place your bet.

Speaker 43859.14s - 3871.88s

And then in the NFL ORG, like non-players are not allowed to bet on other sports. Like league personnel, coaches, trainers, et cetera. You can't bet on any sport at all. So, yeah, it's kind of a carve-out.

Speaker 53872.18s - 3884.38s

But it is, I guess, you know, to be full on advertising, gambling constantly on sports broadcasts and then say that your players can't bet on any sports. I mean, it's a tough line to walk.

Speaker 23884.78s - 3898.9s

And I want to be clear. Like, I think that there's a't bet on any sports. I mean, it's a tough line to walk. And I want to be clear. Like, I think that there's a distinction. I really do. And I think that there's a really big difference between wanting to, like, bet on March Madness EVENT and placing bets on baseball. Like, I'm not confused about the difference there, right?

Speaker 03898.9s - 3912.12s

Like, when people are like, what Pete Roe should be able to be in the Hall of Fame because they have a partnership with MGM ORG. It's like, no, he shouldn't. He bet on baseball while he was a manager. Like, absolutely not. This is an easy line to clear. And that's before

Speaker 23912.12s - 3914.24s

we get into the Pete Rose PERSON as a person

Speaker 03914.24s - 3923.94s

of it all, right? So I want to be clear that I understand those distinctions, but I do think you're right that it's like, you know, we're all really squishy about this stuff now. And I

Speaker 13923.94s - 3926.42s

get how people get sideways on it, you know.

Speaker 33926.46s - 3928.12s

And it doesn't mean that they shouldn't suffer consequences.

Speaker 13928.84s - 3931.86s

Like, IPE can't work in baseball again. That's like a hard no now.

Speaker 23932.38s - 3935.56s

But it's easy to get jammed up.

Speaker 13935.66s - 3938.52s

I think it's pretty easy for people to get jammed up on this stuff.

Speaker 23938.76s - 3940.74s

And it's really too bad.

Speaker 33941.18s - 3943.14s

So we've said so many words.

Speaker 23943.22s - 3946.34s

I don't know how many of them were good, but we sure said a lot of them.

Speaker 33946.7s - 3951.48s

We're all trying to come to terms with this story without, with imperfect information at best.

Speaker 23951.48s - 3957.4s

So to pull back the curtain here, this was supposed to be the intro to our team preview

Speaker 53957.4s - 3959.98s

where we preview the Yankees and the Nationals ORG.

Speaker 23960.18s - 3963.16s

And then Ben looked up and was like, we've been recording for an hour.

Speaker 13963.7s - 3963.84s

Yeah.

Speaker 53964.02s - 3967.88s

And, you know, we put long episodes out, but this might be long even for us.

Speaker 13967.96s - 3970.68s

So we're just going to bonus episode.

Speaker 33971.06s - 3972.02s

Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 13972.02s - 3973.4s

Not for a fun, exciting reason.

Speaker 33974s - 3975.44s

Yeah, extra episode.

Speaker 03975.64s - 3976.68s

This will be Otani PERSON only.

Speaker 33976.68s - 3980.82s

And then we will be back soon with the regularly scheduled preview pod.

Speaker 23980.82s - 3983.2s

And just the shortest intro you've ever had your whole way.

Speaker 53983.54s - 3985.8s

We've just gotten it out of our system here.

Speaker 23985.8s - 4162.34s

Sorry, Shane PERSON. Not that we won't continue to talk about this. We're so, so sorry. All right, I will probably be writing about this soon. So if you want to read my words in addition to hearing them, check the ringer this weekend. One other little tidbit from after we finished recording.ESPN's T.J. Quinn reported MLB ORG is expected to request interviews with all parties, including Otani and Mizuhara, a source told ESPN ORG, although officials will have no way to compel Mizuara ORG's cooperation since he no longer works for baseball. Otani also has a right to refuse cooperation as a member of the MLB Players Association ORG. Otani PERSON also could invoke his right under an interpretation of arbitration precedent to refuse cooperation because of a criminal investigation that's already underway. Traditionally, MLB ORG has argued a player can invoke such an exception if he is a target of the investigation,which Otani PERSON is not believed to be. So, yeah, I'm not sure how much we're going to be hearing from Otani publicly in the coming days. A lot of moving parts here. And a lot to say. This is just like Craig Alcatera, who earlier this week wrote about the various permutations this could take for what he thought would be part of his regular newsletter. It turned out to be a few thousand words, so he sent it as a separate newsletter,much like we sent this as a separate podcast. It's hard to have a brief conversation about this subject. Really is kind of incredible how much we have talked about Otani over the past few years, and for how many reasons, his two-way play, his elbow, his contract, the pleasing revelations about his personal life, and now the not-so-pleasing ones, would rather be talking about his spectacular play, but hey, we go where the story takes us. And we hope that you will go support the podcast on Patreon, which you can do by going toPatreon.com slash effectively wild, and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount, to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free, and get yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners. Kelsey Dauphin, Josh Rodriguez, Rodney W. Shmyser, Ben Torren PERSON, and Mary Kate. Thanks to all of you. Patreon ORG perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only. That's as good a place as any to follow and discuss developments in this story. You also get monthly bonus episodes, play off live streams, discounts on merchand ad-free fancrafts memberships, and so much more, prioritized email answers. Check out all the offerings at patreon.com slash effectively wild. I assure you, it's all entirely legal and aboveboard. No wire transfers required. If you are a Patreon ORG supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. If not, you can still contact us via email, send your questions and comments to podcastofanthagraphs.com.You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify ORG and other podcast platforms. You can turn our Facebook group at Facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild ORG. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod. You can find the Effectively Wild ORG subreddit at our slash Effectively Wild. And you can check the show page for links to sign up to attend an Effectively Wild Listener meetup at an MLB ballpark this season. Thanks to Shane McKeon PERSON for his editing and production assistance. As mentioned, we will be back very soon with another episode before the end of the week.It's already in the production pipeline. Yankees and Nationals ORG previews coming up next. Talk to you then. When I'm riding the bars, we're going for a while.

Speaker 64163.18s - 4198.8s

From the strap on my head will then listen to people talk. I want to hear about baseball with nuance and puffy and stats. Yeah, yeah. Don't want to hear about pitcher wins or about gambling eyes. Only want to hear about my child has a fliticals. And the texture of the hair on the arm going out of one'sgross gross give me give me give me effectively wild to give me give me effectively wild give me give me give me affectively wild give me give me affectively wild give me give me affectively wild