Five Big Questions About MLB’s Investigation Into Shohei Ohtani and His Interpreter

The newest Dodgers star and his longtime interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, are at the center of an investigation into sports gambling debts and what Ohtani’s attorneys are calling “massive theft.” What do we know? Why has the story changed so much already? And what could come next?

Before this week, the worst one could say about Shohei Ohtani’s financial judgment was that he’d hawked FTX. His sole connection to shaky collateral was a twice-repaired UCL, and his only known ties to bookmaking operations were the biographies about him. The darkest secrets he was known to have hidden were his nuptials and the name of his dog.

Ohtani, Major League Baseball’s two-way player and singular sensation, had hogged center stage all offseason, occasionally commanding the crossover, mainstream attention that makes him the quasar at the heart of the game’s galaxy. He became the only player in baseball history to win a second unanimous MVP award; he signed a record-setting $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers after a free-agent sweepstakes that sent fans in multiple countries on flights of fancy; he formed a family and hard-launched it to the intense delight and/or heartbreak of his global stan base. On Wednesday, Ohtani hard-launched two hits on Opening Day after receiving a rock-star—OK, K-pop-star—reception in Seoul, the site of MLB’s season-opening series.

And then, just as spring started, the winter of Ohtani content turned to discontent. Following that first game, the Los Angeles Times and ESPN reported that Ohtani’s attorney had said that the newly debuted Dodger was “the victim of a massive theft.” The alleged thief was Ohtani’s longtime interpreter and close confidant, Ippei Mizuhara. At least $4.5 million was wired from Ohtani’s bank account to an associate of Mathew Bowyer, a bookmaker in California who’s under federal investigation because sports betting is illegal in the state. However, virtually all the other details—including who wired the money and why—are much murkier.

By contrast, the stakes couldn’t be clearer: nothing less than the career and reputation of baseball’s best, highest-paid, and most famous player, not to mention the sport’s perceived integrity in an era of ever-tightening ties between sports leagues and sportsbooks.

In response to reporters’ inquiries, Ohtani’s spokesman and Mizuhara first told one story (that Ohtani had helped pay off Mizuhara’s massive sports-gambling debts), then switched to a second story that directly contradicted the first (that Ohtani had no knowledge of the debts and hadn’t transferred the funds). The flip-flop fueled conversations and conspiracy theories, fanned further by Mizuhara’s firing and replacement, an ESPN report that Ohtani’s representatives had contacted unspecified law enforcement authorities to request an investigation, and a subsequent AP report that Mizuhara and Bowyer (but not Ohtani) are under criminal investigation by the IRS. On Friday evening, MLB announced that its department of investigations has initiated a “formal process investigating the matter.”

To borrow a phrase from last year’s ESPN-produced documentary about Ohtani, we’ve gone beyond the dream. There’s no way for this story to have a happy ending, but the sadness of the denouement depends on details we don’t have. That lack of clarity makes for a vast possibility space, in which some outcomes seem more likely than others but few are off the table entirely. Ohtani could be a deceptive degenerate, or he could be blameless, legally and/or ethically. He could be in big trouble—both with baseball and the law—or in no trouble at all. And MLB could have a huge scandal on its hands, or one that will be easily dismissed, if not as easily forgotten.

Broadly speaking, there are three conceivable possibilities: that Ohtani knew and did nothing, and Ippei orchestrated everything; that Ohtani wasn’t the bettor, but he did knowingly send the money to pay off his friend’s debts; or that Ohtani placed the bets himself, in which case Mizuhara is merely a fall guy (whether willing or otherwise). Each potential explanation carries different consequences and spurs its own set of questions, which we’ll explore.

In January, I asked and answered 17 questions about Ohtani’s deal with the Dodgers. Today I’ll confine myself to five high-level mysteries about the mess he’s enmeshed in. Elusive as the answers seem, they will surface—and when they do, they’ll determine the course this uncharacteristically unsavory Ohtani news cycle takes.

1. Were any bets placed on baseball?

Nothing matters more than this. If the answer is yes, then there are realistic scenarios in which Ohtani would face stiff discipline, up to and including a lifetime ban from MLB. If the answer is no, then the worst-case outcomes for Ohtani would be taken off the table, and he might well emerge from the situation without suffering any punishment.

That stark disparity stems from major league Rule 21, which lays out the penalties for players, umpires, and team or league officials or employees who place improper bets. Rule 21(d)(1) states that players and employees who bet on a game in which they aren’t involved face a one-year suspension. Rule 21(d)(2) warns that those who bet on a game in which they are involved shall be banned permanently. (You may have heard of Shoeless Joe Jackson and Pete Rose.)

Admittedly, non-baseball bets wouldn’t be out of the reach of the long arm of commissioner Rob Manfred (let alone of Uncle Sam). MLB players and personnel are allowed to bet on other sports, provided that those bets are placed legally. But any bets with Bowyer couldn’t have been, because sports betting is still illegal in California. Thus, whoever placed these bets would still be subject to Rule 21(d)(3), which specifies that an applicable person who places a bet with an illegal bookmaker or their associate “shall be subject to such penalty as the Commissioner deems appropriate in light of the facts and circumstances of the conduct.”

Rule 21 also includes a blanket “other misconduct” clause, which says that “any and 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.”

In other words: The commissioner has a lot of leeway to handle the situation as he sees fit. That’s the thing, though: If either Mizuhara or Ohtani did bet on baseball, that leeway goes away. The facts and circumstances are immaterial; it’s an automatic ejection, as with telling an umpire that they’re horseshit. If neither bet on baseball, extenuating circumstances count, and the commissioner can be lenient.

As of now, there’s no evidence that the alleged bets with Bowyer’s operation were related to baseball. ESPN has cited “multiple sources,” including Mizuhara, who’ve insisted that none of the bets were on baseball: “I never bet on baseball,” Ippei told ESPN. “That’s 100 percent. I knew that rule.” The bets, he said, were placed on international soccer, the NBA, the NFL, and college football. That may be true, but Mizuhara’s version of events can’t be taken at face value. If he was a compulsive gambler facing steep debts, it might have been hard for him to resist using his inside info on baseball’s best player. Which is why it’s imperative that MLB gets to the bottom of this question.

2. What’s with the conflicting stories?

The strangest aspect of this story is the about-face by both Mizuhara and Ohtani’s spokesman between Tuesday and Wednesday. Remember, both said on Tuesday that Ohtani had made the payments to settle Ippei’s debt. According to the timeline published Friday at ESPN—the darkest timeline, save for any timeline that includes bets being placed on baseball—the spokesman quoted Ohtani as saying, “Yeah, I sent several large payments. That’s the maximum amount I could send.” Mizuhara corroborated that tale, telling ESPN, “I explained my situation, and obviously he wasn’t happy about it, but he said he would help me.” (Mizuhara added that Ohtani didn’t know or ask about the legality—or lack thereof—of the payments and that “I don’t think either of us thought about that at the time at all.”)

On Wednesday, both Mizuhara and the spokesman disavowed those previous statements. “Ippei was lying,” the spokesman said. “Shohei didn’t know.” Ippei then corroborated that tale, and Ohtani’s attorneys pivoted to providing an account of “massive theft.” What the hell happened here, and what did Sho know?

Well, it is illegal to wire money to an illegal bookmaking operation, even if it’s to do a solid for a friend, not to place bets for oneself. Perhaps the lawyers stepped in to point out that having copped to that crime put their client at risk, and they advised shifting the story to one that would exonerate him. (Maybe someone should’ve consulted them sooner.)

If this is what happened, other aspects wouldn’t add up. Would Ohtani have turned on his bestie so suddenly? Would Ippei go along with a worked shoot that painted him not just as a guy with a gambling problem who unknowingly placed illegal bets, but as someone who also stole millions of dollars to cover the resulting debts? If not, wouldn’t that story probably be exposed as a fiction? And in that case, wouldn’t the cover-up be worse than the crime?

No one would think less of Ohtani for using his wealth to bail out a desperate friend—hell, few people would think less of Ohtani for actually betting on non-baseball sports, which is legal in most of the country. But attempting to throw that friend under the bus would be a different matter.

Plus, Ohtani might not even get in trouble for trying to be a Good Samaritan. Yes, in that scenario he would’ve broken the law, but as The Athletic noted, “The government generally goes after bookmakers, not bettors”—and Ohtani wouldn’t even have been a bettor. The consequences for falsely reporting a “massive theft” would probably be way worse.

Then there’s another obvious question: Could Mizuhara have sent $4.5 million or more without Ohtani’s knowledge? That doesn’t sound easy, but it isn’t impossible. For one thing, the payments were broken into $500,000 installments, which may have prompted less scrutiny from the bank, especially with a wealthy, reputable client like Ohtani. Ohtani has never seemed primarily motivated by maximizing his nest egg; he passed up (or delayed) a huge payday by leaving Nippon Professional Baseball for MLB when international signing rules limited him to the major league minimum. Between his salary and his endorsements, Ohtani made $65 million last year and is in line to make slightly more in 2024, not counting the hundreds of millions he has coming to him in (potentially tax-free) deferred dollars down the road). How closely do we think he’s been monitoring his balance?

What’s more, Ohtani may have given great latitude in his personal life and financial matters to Ippei, whom he met in 2013 when Ohtani was an 18-year-old rookie for the Nippon-Ham Fighters. Ohtani has been wealthy, well-known, and single-mindedly devoted to baseball since he was a teenager; it’s not unreasonable to think that he delegated more to Ippei than was wise. (Never underestimate how oblivious kids and the rich can be about money.)

Ippei wasn’t just Ohtani’s longtime interpreter, though that alone is a fairly intimate role; he also drove Ohtani around, played and practiced with him, went out to eat with him, and so on. The two were constant companions: Ippei, who is 10 years older, described himself and Ohtani to ESPN as “brothers,” and said he spent more time with Ohtani than with his own wife. Two team changes, a move between countries and continents, and a pandemic couldn’t keep them apart. Only this scandal could separate them.

Another common objection to the “Ippei acted alone” theory of the case is the size of his debt: Why would a bookie allow an interpreter who was making at most roughly $500,000 a year to rack up many multiples of that in debt? I’ve never been a bookie, but the potential for extortion could’ve crossed Bowyer’s mind. One ESPN story suggests that the name on the wire transfers might have had value: “Bowyer allowed people to believe Ohtani was a client in order to boost business.” Bowyer’s own attorney has attributed her client’s largesse to the fact that Ippei was Ohtani’s best friend. And if Ippei said that Ohtani would make him whole, those periodic payments would have bolstered his story. Plus, which seems more plausible: that Bowyer extended Ippei a large line of credit, or that Ohtani placed the bets but didn’t cover his losses and thus racked up some massive debts?

On Thursday, Ohtani’s reps advanced an explanation for the story switcheroo, which ESPN recounted: “As Ohtani’s handlers tried to determine what had happened, they initially relied solely on Mizuhara, who continued to translate for Ohtani.” Friday’s more detailed account offered further insight into what seems to have been an unbelievably bungled response to a serious situation. The rep who initially confirmed Mizuhara’s account was a crisis-communications spokesman who had just been hired and who was communicating with ESPN even as the spokesman was still “getting up to speed on information from the Ohtani camp”—meaning Mizuhara, evidently. Is the point of hiring a crisis-communications spokesman to make the crisis … worse? That the spokesman and, seemingly, Ohtani’s agent Nez Balelo were communicating with Ohtani via Mizuhara—assuming Ohtani was even involved—despite Mizuhara ostensibly being the cause of the crisis is confounding enough. That they then arranged for Mizuhara to speak to ESPN for 90 minutes without a lawyer present is mind-boggling. Great job defusing the situation, fellas! Truly, top men.

Ippei told ESPN’s Tisha Thompson that he never purposely misinformed Ohtani while fielding inquiries from ESPN. Even if that’s true, perhaps he didn’t inform Ohtani at all, which is what Ohtani’s reps now claim. (Though Ohtani typically—but not always—communicates through Ippei in public settings, he is, by many accounts, proficient enough in English that it seems unlikely that his interpreter could completely mistranslate his words in his presence without Ohtani noticing.) If Ippei was withholding and fabricating throughout the exchange, it’s unclear how he thought he was going to get away with that indefinitely—crime doesn’t Ippei—but perhaps he was in panic mode and simply trying to buy time. If so, time ran out after the Dodgers game on Wednesday, when team owner Mark Walter told the players that a negative story was coming, Ippei addressed the clubhouse to apologize and disclose his gambling addiction, and Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman stood up and said that Ohtani had helped pay Ippei’s debts.

According to Ohtani’s camp—minus Mizuhara, a little too late—Ohtani didn’t realize what was happening until a new interpreter was brought in during the postgame clubhouse meeting. While traveling back to the hotel, Ohtani told his reps that he “didn’t recognize Mizuhara’s version of the events.” Shortly after that, the reps said, Ohtani discovered money missing from his account. “He didn’t know what the fuck was going on,” the spokesman told ESPN. Neither did the spokesman, it seems. At the very least, it sounds as if Ohtani and his team were entirely too lax and gullible. But then, that would tend to support the idea that they all trusted Ippei implicitly, which could lend credence to the notion that Ippei had the authority and autonomy to betray his “brother.”

Reality gets messy, and the truth could be a blend of both stories. Maybe Ohtani made some of the payments, but Mizuhara made more without his knowledge. Or maybe Ohtani made all of the payments, but did so under false pretenses, such that his lawyers could assert that Mizuhara scammed him.

And while we can’t rule out the “Ohtani as criminal mastermind” theory, it certainly doesn’t seem likely that Ohtani is secretly a gambling addict. ESPN’s report mentions that “multiple sources, including Mizuhara, [said] that Ohtani does not gamble,” which is backed up by Bowyer’s lawyer’s statement that Bowyer “never met or spoke with Shohei Ohtani,” as well as Ohtani’s former teammates’ contention to Angels beat writer Jeff Fletcher that Ohtani “never paid attention to other sports.” But people dealing with addiction often get good at hiding it, even from their friends and relatives. And a month ago, it didn’t seem likely that Ohtani was secretly in a long-term relationship and about to announce he was married. Watching someone play baseball doesn’t mean we really know them. Prior to this week, Ohtani had a pretty unimpeachable reputation on a personal level, but that’s partly because he’s so private that there was little to impeach.

The tragic thing is that the more exculpatory the truth is for Ohtani, the more manipulative it would mean Mizuhara was. Which means that the only way for Ohtani to face no legal liability or discipline from the league is for his friend and brother to have totally taken advantage of him. Maybe he’d make that trade, but it’s bound to be a painful one. We’ve seen Ohtani play through—and excel despite—the distress of impending serious surgery. But it’s one thing to lose a ligament, and another to lose a friend. The best-case outcome for MLB is that an addiction costs Ippei his livelihood and robs him and Ohtani of a cherished relationship. (The breakup feels real; Shohei has scrubbed Ippei from his Instagram.) That would hardly be something to celebrate.

3. Will Manfred and MLB give Ohtani preferential treatment?

Not if they want to maintain credibility in staying on top of the potential ill effects of the league’s embrace of betting. Ohtani is MLB’s golden goose, the last player Manfred would want to miss time or have his character tarnished. The league has already rewritten the rules on the field to accommodate Ohtani. That’s all the more reason to treat him the same off the field as anyone else.

That’s not to say that the league should go out of its way to make an example of Ohtani. In 2015, Marlins pitcher Jarred Cosart was found to have placed illegal non-baseball bets. Manfred fined him and moved on, and everyone forgot about it until we started searching for precedents for the current controversy. If Ohtani didn’t do anything worse than Cosart, he shouldn’t suffer a harsher fate.

However, there would be a price to pay for any appearance of favoritism. ESPN first approached MLB about this story on Sunday evening (Monday morning in Seoul). On Thursday, The Athletic reported that Ohtani was “not currently facing discipline” and that he was “not believed to be under active investigation by the league.” On Friday morning, a league spokesperson said MLB was “looking into” the matter and “gathering information.” “Gathering information” isn’t so different from “investigating,” but the lack of an official inquiry—and the Friday-evening form the eventual announcement took—invited criticism.

We can make some allowances for the timing—Manfred and the Dodgers were traveling to and from Seoul—and it’s generally better to slow down before acting than to jump the gun the way Ohtani’s PR people did. But the backlash to the merest hint that MLB might be failing to do its due diligence illustrates the importance of the appearance of propriety. The more rigorous MLB seems to be, the less likely it is that some Michael Jordan-esque stain will stick to Ohtani even in the event that he did nothing wrong. Some people still believe that Houston Astros second baseman José Altuve was wearing a buzzer in 2017; Manfred is well aware of what happens when fans believe players got off too easy.

The 2017 Astros actually did steal signs illegally, though. As of yet, there’s no proof that Ohtani broke any rules or laws, let alone compromised the sport’s competitive integrity.

4. Will this scandal inspire a larger sports-gambling reckoning?

Nah. Sports leagues have been in bed with sportsbooks for years now, and they’re burrowing deeper under the blankets by the day. (Sports media is widely sponsored by sportsbooks too.) Unless somebody is found to have bet on baseball—which, we must stress once more, hasn’t been alleged—this likely won’t morph into an extinction-level scandal that forces serious self-reflection. Still, you can dodge potentially hazardous asteroids for only so many centuries before one of them moves from close call to collision course.

March is Problem Gambling Awareness Month, so this story is certainly doing its part. The publicity surrounding Ohtani could make this case a useful stalking horse for those in favor of regulating sports–gambling marketing. Conveniently for MLB, though, this situation revolved around illegal betting, not the kind that could ensnare an official league partner (though Mizuhara said he had previously bet on DraftKings, which does have a relationship with the league). Manfred could even use this situation to stigmatize unsanctioned bookmaking and praise the virtues of gambling legally. After all, if wagering were legal in California, nobody would have had to be in business with Bowyer.

Plenty of gamblers have legally ruined their lives; it can come with the habit. Nor need we look beyond baseball (or the NFL) to find cautionary stories that started on solid legal ground. If Ippei—who was raised in California but said he didn’t know that wagering was illegal there—succumbed to a severe gambling problem, he’s one of a growing number of people in the U.S. who are suffering from the same vice. That doesn’t mean we’re going to get game-fixing again at the big league level, but it does suggest that Ohtani, like LeBron before him, won’t be the last star caught up in something similarly unseemly.

5. When will we actually get some answers?

Fittingly enough, we don’t know. According to ESPN’s T.J. Quinn, MLB will try to arrange interviews with all relevant parties, but it can’t compel Ippei’s participation now that he no longer works for a team. (Too bad MLB didn’t interview him on Tuesday or Wednesday, when he was all too eager to talk.) Ohtani, too, could decline to cooperate, a right afforded to members of the MLBPA. Or, per Quinn, he could “invoke his right, under an interpretation of arbitration precedent, to refuse cooperation because of a criminal investigation that’s already underway” (though he’s not known to be the subject of any criminal investigation, and doesn’t seem likely to be targeted).

MLB’s paid administrative leave policy, which Trevor Bauer and Julio Urías were placed on during their days with the Dodgers, applies only to players who are being investigated for violations of the joint domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse policy. Ohtani hasn’t even been accused of dealing directly with Bowyer, to say nothing of betting on baseball. Thus, the expectation is that he’ll remain on the active roster and continue to play as the process plays out.

That’s probably going to be weird for a while. On Wednesday, the Dodgers released a boilerplate statement. Before Thursday’s game, manager Dave Roberts—the only member of the organization who talked to the press—said, “I’m not going to talk about it.” Team president Stan Kasten declined to comment, and Friedman remarked, “There’s nothing to say. Literally nothing to say.” Ohtani didn’t answer questions after the game.

The Dodgers will return to playing exhibition games in Arizona on Sunday, in advance of Thursday’s resumption of their regular season. It may be harder to duck questions at home than it was 6,000 miles away, and while this week’s events made clear that we can’t anticipate what Ohtani’s handlers will do, it wouldn’t be surprising for him to remain mum on the matter until MLB’s investigation concludes. In the meantime, his reps (and, separately, Ippei’s), will likely comb through records to document whatever access the interpreter may have had to Ohtani’s accounts, the circumstances in which the payments were made, and any relevant communications between the two. The public may have to be patient—the wheels of justice sometimes turn slowly at MLB, though they’re grinding faster at the IRS these days—but this doesn’t seem like a case where we’ll never know what happened.

I don’t have hard-and-fast beliefs about any of this, because we don’t know enough to draw conclusions. Granted, who wouldn’t want the most talented, dynamic, and seemingly likable player the sport has seen in years to stay clean? (Well, maybe some Giants fans.) Without Ohtani, what would I write and talk about? But the inner-fan impulse to cry “Say it ain’t Sho” isn’t a reason not to follow the wire transfers where they lead, without fear or favor. My mental New York Times needle has been pinging among multiple outcomes, though it seems to have settled on “this is more likely to blow over than to blow up.” (Any more than it’s blown up already, that is.) But Ohtani plus anything is a formula for a frenzy, and unless he’s conclusively cleared, this story won’t die down—which isn’t the way Manfred wants to steal headlines from March Madness as a new MLB season starts.

Up until now, the news about Ohtani has almost always been blissful, except when he’s blown out his elbow. (In Japan, he’s known as “the perfect person.”) Now, we’re learning what it looks like when Ohtani’s celebrity backfires. The 29-year-old’s UCL issues have jeopardized his future on the mound, but they don’t endanger his hitting. Maybe by default, then, the specter of bad sports-betting behavior poses a greater existential threat—however remote—to his future on the field. The next time he fails to silence the skeptics will be the first, but the hurdle he’s facing is unprecedented: the kind he can’t overcome with swings or sweepers.