The latest episode of the MLB Trade Rumors Podcast is now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts! Make sure you subscribe as well! You can also use the player at this link to listen, if you don’t use Spotify or Apple for podcasts.
This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors to discuss…
- MLBTR’s 2024-25 Free Agent Power Rankings (1:30)
- Gerrit Cole didn’t crack the rankings due to his specific opt-out situation with the Yankees (6:30)
- The upcoming free agencies of Alex Bregman of the Astros and Pete Alonso of the Mets (9:20)
- Is there any scenario where Juan Soto of the Yankees is not the top free agent? (15:15)
- Ippei Mizuhara, former interpreter for Shohei Ohtani, charged with bank fraud (19:40)
- Athletics to play in Sacramento before moving to Las Vegas (32:40)
Plus, we answer your questions, including…
- How can a pitcher blow a save in the seventh inning? How early can a save be blown? (38:25)
- Do you think the Tigers will release Javier Báez? It is painful to watch him. (41:15)
- Who could the Braves target inside or outside the organization to replace Spencer Strider? (45:15)
Check out our past episodes!
- Reviewing Our Free Agent Predictions And Future CBA Issues – listen here
- Baseball Is Back, Will Smith’s Extension, Mike Clevinger And Jon Berti – listen here
- A Live Reaction To The Jordan Montgomery Signing, Shohei Ohtani’s Interpreter, And J.D. Martinez Joins The Mets – listen here
The podcast intro and outro song “So Long” is provided courtesy of the band Showoff. Check out their Facebook page here!
A’s moving to Sacramento is a lack of of management by MLB office. Allowing a owner to gut a team and pay almost nothing in wages. Choose to play in a Minor league stadium to save money shows there is no leadership from Manfred. I have never seen such lack of leadership in any sport like is in MLB today.
Just wait until they get to Vegas, where there’s heavy competition for entertainment dollars. They’ll need Taylor Swift to perform between innings to get people to attend. Major Black Eye coming for MLB.
LP2T: Has it ever occurred to you that most of Swift’s concert tickets are purchased by the organization that funds and promotes her? Almost certainly more than 90% of the attendance.
Now, go ahead and knee-jerk whine that I’m wrong without bothering to ponder WHY what I’m presenting might be valid.
Taylor Swift’s Era Tour grossed more than $1 Billion…are you saying that “organization that funds and promotes her” shelled out $900 Million to make $100 Million?
Maybe you should go check yourself into a hospital for a few days.
You’re missing JazzJazz’s point.
You’re missing ALL points, zachary.
Maybe for some people, the act of starting to figure things out takes many years.
ARC – There’s a simple solution.
MLB needs to implement a minimum payroll requirement for all revenue sharing recipients.
Agree but was does the MLBPA give up in return?
MLBPA can demand min spending all they want but mlb n owners have no incentive to agree to such without getting something in return.
Question is what does mlb n owners want in return and is it acceptable to MLBPA
Believe – A minimum payroll threshold without a hard cap?
MLBPA would instantly sign off on it, they would be thrilled to force the lowest payroll teams to spend more.
Fever, but there are a handful of owners opposed to a minimum payroll requirement (Fisher, Monfort, and some Central division team owners).
It seems that IBWCW is asking you what MLBPA would give up to the MLB owners to get the minimum payroll agreed to by ownership side.
MLBPA would be ecstatic yes
But what are they giving up in order to get MLB/Owners to agree to such a thing?
Its a two way street.
MLBPA wants minimum salary thresholds
What does the MLB/Owner side get in return for agreeing to such? And what the MLB/Owner side want is that acceptable to the MLBPA in return for minimum spending threshold?
Without even listening I question “Ohtani’s stolen money”. Ippei will take the fall and will be the world’s wealthiest interpreter. I believe Manfred and his posse of wonks are diligently digging into all the facts and I believe buffalos can fly and MLB cares about its fans. What this has done is it’s given everyone a new excuse for when things go wrong or they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing, blame your interpreter
So you’re not willing to listen to a 12-minute podcast segment before commenting, and thus presumably not willing to take even more time to read the publicly available 37-page court document laying out the evidence we discussed within.
That’s fine — use your time how you want. But honest question then: Is your line of thinking basically, “I’ve decided Ohtani is guilty because I want him to be”? And if so, why is that?
If that sounds sarcastic, confrontational, etc. — it’s not intended to be. I’m genuinely curious.
I was skeptical when the news initially broke. I’ve said as much on prior episodes of the podcast. But I also approached the court briefings with an open mind, read through the extensive text messages between Mizuhara and the bookie, read how Mizuhara positioned himself as the bottleneck between Ohtani and his bank — and also between Ohtani and his representatives — and found the entire case against Mizuhara not only plausible but hard to doubt/disbelieve when all the facts were laid out neatly. Taking the time to read through it and parse the evidence that’s being levied against him answered nearly all of the natural questions that quickly arose for me.
Again, what you do with your time is your prerogative. I’m not here to tell you how to spend it. But I am fascinated by the mentality: “There’s tons of evidence but I don’t want to read it, hear about it or see it — I know he’s guilty and that’s the end of it for me.”
“Is your line of thinking basically, “I’ve decided Ohtani is guilty because I want him to be”? ”
It’s like talking to a flat-earther, moon landing denier, chem-trail enthusiast or any of the other conspiracy theorists today . No amount of evidence or use of common sense will convince them.
Cat – The bigger problem is many people today simply refuse to admit they are wrong.
They pick a side and stick with it, even when plenty of evidence is provided to support opposing viewpoints.
Without question, the person often realizes they are wrong but STILL refuses to admit it. Call it immaturity, arrogance, insecurity, or a combination of all three.
FPG – Willful ignorance is highly motivated by self-image preservation.
MLB – I totally agree!
I also believe the general lack of trust is a factor. Let’s face it, we are all constantly lied to and deceived on a regular basis. It’s become so common that many people tend to assume they are being deceived until proven otherwise.
It’s a sad example of where we are today as a society.
—–“Is your line of thinking basically, “I’ve decided Ohtani is guilty because I want him to be”? ”—-
Did anyone listen to the nonsense ramblings of the so called J6 commitee? Spouting off total rubbish, then saying it’s the unabided truth has become common place recently.
john – I do think MLB is partly responsible for the proliferation of gambling in the baseball world. They not only condone sports betting, they embrace it now.
Every time I watch Red Sox pregame and see Tom Caron do his segment on parlays and lead into the FanDuel promo in which they encourage gambling on the very game that is about to be broadcast, it’s a major turnoff for me.
I don’t know how many other MLB teams have sports betting websites as major sponsors, but i think it’s really messed up and feels like they are grooming kids to be gamblers.
Fever-
I’ll go with you there on gambling in sports in general and agree with you am sickened not just on nesn, but pretty much all spots networks push.. is it that draftkings?? Which u know teams make tons off of for allowing them to take away money from those who have the least to lose.
Basic greed. greed of a sport which once held it’s head above allowing riff-raff like that and gambling in general into it.
People tired of hearing this from me, but another point of the moral decay of this game and society in general the last few decades allowing this and casinos in so many cities, except for the ones in LV, biloxi Ms, Atlantic city nj.
John – I totally agree with you, the way MLB has gotten into bed with gambling is disgusting.
And I’m not anti-gambling, I’ve been to Vegas once and Biloxi 3 times and AC probably 30 times. But baseball teams encouraging fans to bet on baseball is shocking to me.
MLB wants to keep that revenue growing, that’s all they care about.
allowing them to take away money from those who have the least to lose.
========================
I don’t necessarily disagree. But just like with alcohol and drugs, people are going to gamble. We can criminalize it, but I doubt we can stop it.
If I had to make a decision, I would legalize the gambling and outlaw the advertisements. I am absolutely sicked with the amount of advertising the government does on behalf of its lotteries.
This has been beaten to death, but no evidence exists to prove Ohtani was not involved. I read the entire indictment. I think just about the entire thing was about Ippie moving money. But that could have just as easily been done with Ohtani’s approval as without his approval. What remains is:
1-It is less than likely that Ippie has Ohtani’s credentials, but definitely possible.
2-It is unlikely that Ohtani simply didn’t bother opening his statements for 26 months.
3-It is extremely unlikely that a bookie gives a translator $100k line of credit.
4-It is almost impossible that someone making $200-300k a year is getting a $1M line of credit.
5-The $1M line of credit being contingent of making a $500K payment every Monday would never be done if the bookie was relying only on Ippie’s weekly take-home pay of $4,000. Ippie is 99% short.
6-The bookie was nice enough to acknowledge that it was a “cover job”. So, a cover for what?
7-What of the missing $24,000,000? The indictment mentioned $40M of losses, and $16M of implied theft. So does someone owe someone $24M? And if that is Ippie’s $24M debt, does that mean the bookie allowed Ippie to run up, quite literally, a 100 years of take-home debt?
I’m not saying that there couldn’t be other issues, like old-fashioned embezzlement, with gambling as a cover. But there is about a 0% chance that the current story is true.
JoeBrady- You have very little understanding of how the illegal bookmaking industry and bookies work with their predatory tactics.
Do you think an illegal bookie has access to people who are placing illegal bets credit reports? Their w2 statements?
And for guys not opening their bank statements, dude not to sound like a jerk but constant checking of bank statements is only something poor people do. Well off people don’t check their bank accounts unless there is a reason to do so.
They’re not going to issue credit they don’t have a realistic chance of collecting. That’s just bad business.
1984wasntamanual – They sure will and it’s common practice:
theathletic.com/5421003/2024/04/17/ippei-mizuhara-…
I just didn’t like how Ohtani’s story changed from “covering for his interpreter” to “my interpreter stole it”. And with him being the current face of baseball, I felt right off that MLB would bend over backward to cover for Ohtani and not let him take the fall.
Joe seems to have an extremely good handle on this. bookies are in the business of making money and without knowing exactly where the money is coming from they don’t take large bets. Small ones? Sure. They might allow a person to run up a debt that would equal what his annual income is, but only after they have shown a history of paying off losing bets. You can be sure that the bookie knew exactly who Mizahara was and what he might be making in income, so he was not allowing him to make million dollar bets without being absolutely sure who was backing that bet.
The only thing he missed is that to make wire transfers of that size from a PERSONAL account and not a business account they would need a physical signature that matched the signature card and it would be flagged after the 1st one since it was by a foreign national.
NO bank would be involved in this without them talking to Ohtani in person at the bank or via a video call and utilizing their own interpreter, you have to understand that the financial institution has the legal liability for each of those transfers.
More is coming on this and its not going to be good for Ohtani.
You have very little understanding of how the illegal bookmaking industry
===========================
Explain it to me by addressing my points.
Do you think an illegal bookie has access to people who are placing illegal bets credit reports? Their w2 statements?
And for guys not opening their bank statements, dude not to sound like a jerk but constant checking of bank statements is only something poor people do. Well off people don’t check their bank accounts unless there is a reason to do so.
==========================
That’s such a lazy take. I think it is more likely than not that Ohtani, and I could do a better job of defending him.
1-Of course they don’t ask for credit reports. But they can and do estimate how much a client is good for. They don’t just give you whatever credit limit you ask for.
2-And thinking that rich people never check their accounts is crazy. Is there even a single person in here that hasn’t opened up a bank statement in 26 months? Even one person?
without knowing exactly where the money is coming from they don’t take large bets.
==================
It’s even more complicated. Bookies often lay off some percentage of their bets to lower their variance. They need to be able to collect from their clients in order to pay off the people that handle their excess. The bookies have to have that money.
No, sir. You can do your own homework (or not). I’m not the one in the wrong here and making misinformed statements to fit a narrative.
So MLB Fanatic, you were called out and then went to hide.
MLB Fanatic
You can do your own homework (or not).
=============================
I explained why I think Ohtani was involved. You said my points about the bookie were uninformed. I asked you why.
If you don’t, or can’t, explain why I was wrong, then you shouldn’t have said it. When I addressed Mr. Adams, I listed 7 distinct reasons.
You don’t, or can’t, list one.
“I’m not the one in the wrong here and making misinformed statements to fit a narrative.” – MLB Fanatic
===============================================
You really are though.
Joe Brady asked some very serious questions
Where did the 24 mill in debt go?
Ippei owed 40 mill, paid 16 mill, so how was he allowed to have 24 mill in debt?
People have done their best to estimate how much money Ohtani made during his tenure (Angels contract, endorsements, etc) in LAA.
Even if the bookie knew Ippei was stealing from Ohtani (which the 37 page report seems to question that “fact”) how would the bookie expect Ippei to steal 40 million and pay it back? The obvious answer is thats not possible to expect Ippei to steal that much.
It was plausible Ippei stole 4.5 mill and no one noticed.
Its borderline unlikely he stole 16 mill and no one at all noticed.
Letting him run up 40 mill and expecting him to pay it off using Ohtani’s money is just unrealistic no matter how you slice it.
The next question I have his why did Ohtani open a bank account in the USA?
Did he not have a bank back home in Japan?
Is it impossible for businesses to send pay checks electronically to foreign bank accounts?
Why was there a need to open a bank in America?
Where did ohtani put all his money while playing in Japan all those years?
Did Ippei have access to those accounts as well? Did he steal from those accounts as well?
I just find it strange Ohtani at the suggestion of Ippei opened a brand new bank account and funneled all his american earned dollars into that account instead of using his already existing accounts who, in theory, speak Japanese being a Japanese based bank, and could possibly be paid electronically by the Angels, Nike, whomever.
The 37 page report just told us a story of how Ippei was able to steal from Ohtani. It did not address serious questions that still exist about this whole ordeal.
I Believe We Can Win
Joe Brady asked some very serious questions
==========================
It’s the only way to come to a valid conclusion. I have never once come to a conclusion that I couldn’t change. But I have questions, they need to be answered.
Heck, it doesn’t even have to be a great answer. Do I believe that Ippie stole Ohtani’s credentials? No, but it is possible.
Do I believe that the bookie allowed Ippie to run up $40M is losses, and only paid back $16M? Absolutely not. That’s as close to -0- as one could get.
Could there be an other answer? Sure, but I haven’t heard one.
Steve – More importantly …. any cavities yesterday? ;O)
Maybe my line of thinking is that someone so money conscious to defer hundreds of millions of dollars to avoid California taxes is unaware that millions of dollars are missing from his account. Maybe you think he’s not involved because you don’t want him involved? The answer to everything is to follow the money, and a guy financially astute like Ohtani knows about his money. Maybe baseball doesn’t want the face of the game to be dirty. How much money would need to be missing from your accounts before you noticed? Keep chasing unicorns but for the truth follow the money
Old – You lose me when you assume Ohtani is “financially astute”.
The deferrals were no doubt a recommendation by his financial advisor and/or accountant.
And if you assume Ohtani is generally adept at handling his finances ….. think again. His mom handled his finances until just recently.
essentiallysports.com/mlb-baseball-news-despite-mi…
The author said, “Although he was making more than $2 million a year, not including endorsements, Ohtani lived off an allowance of $1,000 a month, distributed by his mother.” The legend was still under the control of his mother and never tried to impose his superiority on anyone.
Believe what you want or believe what you’re told idc. Someday you might even pull your head out of the sand or wherever else it might be. However what I say has a possibility of being true. Ask yourself, do you trust Manfred?
Him ,his mommy, his agent, his financial advisor, so no one is watching his money. All that money disappeared without any of the other people saying “eh excuse me Shohei, where’s all your money gone?” That’s plausible, so well Ok you sold me
Old – The only thing I believe is “Innocent until proven guilty”.
Wait ….
Okay, I also believe John Henry is really Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns.
Old – If you want your opinion to be respected, you need to provide something to support it. Assumptions of Ohtani combing through his bank activity is NOT support. Neither is assumptions of people (other than Ohtani & the interpreter) being aware of the withdrawals.
I’m not even sure what the heck your point is.
Are you saying Ohtani made the bets himself?
Are you saying he made them through his interpreter?
Are you saying he paid off the interpreter’s debts?
This is the United States of America, we do not assume guilt.
So… maybe it’s his mothers gambling debts??
He didn’t defer the money to avoid California taxes. If that was his goal his tax advisor should be fired. MLB players are paid where the income is earned, in other words where the games are played. Now all of that income will be earned in California. 100% of it. That is where he will pay state taxes on that income.
Following the money is that Ohtani makes MLB and the Dodgers a huge amount of money and they don’t want to kill the golden goose, so Mizuhara is being paid off to take the fall. The difference between the $16 million he is being charged with stealing and the $40 million is his payoff for spending a few years in prison.
I think eventually Ohtani will be implicated further for gambling because bookie that take $160 million in bets from one person over two years are not stupid. They know where the money is coming from. That is why the bookie said in those texts that they knew Mizuhara was taking the fall.
BTW, at that point in his career, from 2021 to early 2023, Ohtani had made about $30-32 million total. $16 million would be just about every penny he had and would have required liquidating investments to make those payments. Ohtani knew about this. Mizuhara stole nothing.
outinleftfield – lol
Nothing funny about that.
outinleftfield – Your lack of understanding of how an illegal bookmaking operation functions while making misinformed generalized statements about banking policies is what make it funny.
Now all of that income will be earned in California.
======================
Are you sure? If Ohtani got paid $2M this year living in CA, and got paid $40M 12 years from now, when he is living in FL or Japan, is he still liable for CA tax?
I don’t think that tax situation is correct. They pay tax in the state the game is played. An issue is he is only paying the California game tax portion on $2m per year. For the 10 years he gets $68m per year, California misses out if he doesn’t continue living there.
Samson was telling me it has inspired California congressman to look at closing the loophole.
“BTW, at that point in his career, from 2021 to early 2023, Ohtani had made about $30-32 million total. $16 million would be just about every penny he had and would have required liquidating investments to make those payments” Really?
“It is estimated that Ohtani makes at least $40 million yearly from endorsement deals. The Los Angeles Times reports that Ohtani is “believed to be the sport’s highest earner in endorsement contracts,” which shouldn’t be a surprise.” Dec. 2023
“Not only is Ohtani raking in endorsement deals, he is by far the leading MLB earner in endorsement money this year. According to Sportico, Ohtani is first with $65 million in endorsement earnings.” Mar 2024
Top MLB players in endorsement earnings this year, per Sportico:
1. Shohei Ohtani, $65 million
2. Bryce Harper, $7 million
3. Aaron Judge, $6 million
Jeez, dude. Did he hurt your feelings because he didn’t want to (or have the time to) listen to a podcast that you were a part of?
People have a right to draw their own conclusions, with or without your input. Juries do it all the time.
Put some ice on your bruised ego and move on.
hockiechick
No. Idiots are bad for society
People who think they know more about a case than the investigators are idiots.
Muted (idiot)
What if the investigation is fake and the investigators are corrupt agents, fili?!
@Steve Adams – What I’d like to do is have someone (anyone) write a simple fact based article on what took place.
The whole story from beginning to end with nothing but facts. No conjecture and no assumption then we can see where it leads us.
I think your recommendations above start us on that path, I’d just like to see everything in a single place.
The entire 37-page court briefing is available for anyone who wants to read it and is exactly that:
documentcloud.org/documents/24542204-usa-v-mizuhar…
@Steve Adams
How is it that Filihok hasn’t been banned? He constantly posts incendiary remarks and calls people names, yet he still has an account? Just look at this thread, for example.
Frankly, I don’t see any reason why someone like him should be allowed to post these types of things on a daily basis without consequence. He’s one of the main reasons why I don’t come here as often as I used to in the past.
@WillieMaysHayes24 You could always just mute him. I choose not to, but you do you.
Haram – Agreed! Namecalling is usually where I draw the line.
Willie: Why do you get to be the arbiter of what’s “allowed”?!
Steve has a lot of time for that long ass post
I prefer the cliff notes version myself… got a link for that?
Go Dodgers!
Oldguy: This entire Ohtani story is probably totally fabricated anyway.
Would it be legal for the Tigers to place Baez on the IL with a mental problem and then have him work with a sports psychologist? Something has to be wrong because a world class athlete rarely simply “loses it” as quickly and as much as Baez seems to have. Usually it is more of a sliding scale instead of complete drop off a cliff. It HAS happened that way in the past, Andruw Jones comes to mind, but it is not common for sure.
He got paid, No motivation to work on his game or get better.
silly. 2025 isn’t the end of the world.He still had potential to make 100 million more if he were good
I wish I owned a ranch in Floridatita…almost as good as owning one in Sparks.
@ronnsnow
And also no reason to keep using whatever they were using that helped them produce like they did to get those contracts.
MLB and MLBPA seriously need to give teams the option to void contracts when they can get proof that a guy used before signing the contract. I’m sure the clean players will be for it. And the crazy thing is that we’ll get more guys busted because teams will hire investigators to find the proof that is being masked when these guys test.
Banned – If they don’t test positive, what would you constitute as proof? Not a chance MLB would win a judgement for something like that.
If you can get the same type of proof that busted A*Roids, Bonds, etc. who didn’t test positive for tests, but evidence was found.
I have been wondering about the legality of strapping him to a Falcon9. The Tigers could save a lot of money and that’s the luxury, first class model. Only the best for Baez!
Um, there have been guys who completely lost it. Chris Davis comes to mind. So does Mo Vaughn. Ryan Braun didn’t have it so much after he was busted.
What do those guys have in common?
You have Baez. We in Miami have Avi Garcia.
Who doesn’t think that Baez and Garcia aren’t the same situations as the guys I mention?
BannedMarlinsFanBase
Um, there have been guys who completely lost it.
========================
I wouldn’t absolve the owners and GMs when they sign a player that should suspect was using PEDs. Some players are more consistent, but some players are 30 years old, with a career 7.25 OPS, and suddenly have an .850. Surely, the GM has to suspect he had help.
Fair statement, but that isn’t always the case with ownership. There are many who know just about as much about baseball and baseball players as they do about rocket science.
No mention of the Bauer accuser being charged with felony fraud?
So, how many accusers did/does he have? Lindsey Hill,this felony girl, and any else?
How many accusers did Laci Green have back in 2016? Quality over quantity every single time.
who? what
Radfem Youtuber who was popular in the 2010s decade. She put out a video on false grape accusations which she concluded by saying she believes ALL grape/SA accusations, even random anonymous ones made on YouTube and urged her viewers to do the same. Commenters responded by dogpiling on Green in the comments section accusing her of graping them.
If prosecutors and.judges would start doing their dm jobs instead of looking at a political or corporate futures and encourage policing the right way – to the fullest extent of the law we might be able to save this country.
Criminal liable, criminal harrassment, sexual harassment, sexual liable, extortion, slander, sexual slander…..and I’m not talking about Bauer. Trespassing, assault. Put the dm criminals AWAY FOR A LONG TIME. QUIT MAKING JAIL TIME SO EASY. No TV, weight rooms, holiday meals, special meals……STOP SERVING COOKIES FOR GOD’S SAKE!
That’s right, I said it. Go to jail….YOU DON’T GET COOKIES!
On all major contract websites, it shows Cole’s money for the opt out years at $36m per season. That equals $144m. Why does MLBTR keep quoting the opt-out amount at $188m?
The NBA just banned Jontay Porter for life for gambling on basketball and giving inside information to gamblers. You know, for the integrity of the game. Hello MLB. Porter should have blamed his interpreter
One final thing from me as we agree to disagree, aren’t you happy I gave you something to talk about today?
A’s aren’t just going to Sacramento for 3 years, they are moving there permanently. Fisher will end up selling to Ranadive.
Ohtani’s money wasn’t stolen. It’s not even possible to make transfers of that size without direct contact with the account holder, not just a phone call, and even the bookie said that the translator was taking the fall for Ohtani.
Chat over.
I’m in full agreement on the Ohtani “theft”. We are witnessing the most famous ‘fall” ever.
Relocating is not new: Philadelphia A’s, Kansas City A’s, 1901 Baltimore Orioles and Milwaukee Brewers, St Louis Browns, Boston Braves, Milwaukee Braves, New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, Montreal Expos and Washington Senators twice all relocated.
Javier Baez should watch from the bench the remainder of his career.
Javy Baez = modern day Andruw Jones 🙁
Owner interference
Why was Soto so bad defensibly for the padres?
@larry48 He may not have been bad .(though he’s slow enough to be legitimately bad.) since three years of defensive stats roughly equal one year at the plate, and we know how much hitting can vary fr year to year
or
a minor nagging injury last year
or
weak OF defensive placement by the Pads
or
rule change had an obscure effect on LF defensive stats (also, that def numbers took a season to catch up with)
or
undisclosed LASIK this offseason
or
and so on.