NEW YORK — Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred on Wednesday said the league did not anticipate any further restrictions on baseball prop bets after prominent U.S. sportsbooks recently established a nationwide $200 betting limit on individual pitches and banned those bets from inclusion in parlays to curtail the motivation for manipulation.
“I think that the most important undertaking and really the bedrock of our relationship with the sportsbooks is the ability to monitor betting activity,” Manfred said Wednesday during the owners meetings. “The ability to discern inappropriate patterns is really, really important. We understood the prop bet issue from the very beginning. I’m glad we’ve done something about it. But the rest of the program, right now, I think we’re generally prepared to move forward under the rules that we have now.”
Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were charged Nov. 9 with fraud, conspiracy and bribery resulting from an alleged ruse to fix individual pitches to win money for gamblers. The prop bet constraints were announced the next day.
On Friday, members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which oversees professional sports, sent a letter to Manfred communicating concern with a “new integrity crisis” U.S. pro sports have confronted and seeking answers about the pitchers’ alleged scheme.
Manfred on Wednesday said the league would “respond fully and cooperatively and on time” to the Senate inquiry, adding that the limitations announced this month were “a really, really significant change that should reduce the incentive for anyone to be involved in an inappropriate way.”
Clase and Ortiz are facing a lifetime ban for their alleged activity. Manfred said the league’s investigation remained ongoing.
The betting scandal dampened MLB’s vibes coming off a season that produced huge viewership numbers all the way through a thrilling seven-game World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays. On Wednesday, Manfred said “the business has great momentum right now” while also pointing out, with the collective bargaining agreement set to expire on Dec. 1, 2026, that competitive balance, rooted in the insistence by small-market clubs that they are at a significant disadvantage going up against big-market teams, remains problematic from the league’s point of view.
Manfred said labor has been addressed at the owners meetings this week, but he declined to elaborate on those discussions.
“What I would say about the issue of competitive balance is that we have a significant segment of our fans that have been vocal about the issue of competitive balance and in general we try to pay attention to our fans,” Manfred said. “So it is a topic of conversations.”
Manfred again emphasized his top priority is to avoid letting a work stoppage cost the league games in 2027.
“There has never been a lost game since I became involved as an employee of baseball and it is my goal to get this next one done, keeping that record intact,” Manfred said. “It’s a lot of work to be done between now and then, but that’s my goal.”
Among the other topics discussed by Manfred:
• Manfred said Tropicana Field’s renovations are progressing “really well” as the Tampa Bay Rays prepare to return to the domed ballpark for the 2026 season after Hurricane Milton ravaged the area in October 2024, forcing the team to play its home games in 2025 at the New York Yankees‘ spring training home.
“I think they only have two panels left, I believe, and they expect the roof to be dried out the first week in December, which is a really important milestone for us. There’s going to be new turf and padding, new flooring throughout, renovations of the suites, seating areas. All the air-quality tests have come back fine. We’re really pleased with the progress,” he said.
As for the Rays’ search for a long-term home, Manfred said the franchise’s new ownership group, led by Patrick Zalupski, is “hard at work getting the lay of the land in the Tampa Bay region to find out what their options are.”
• Manfred said he expected there would be interest in buying the San Diego Padres after the Seidler family announced it was exploring a potential sale of the franchise.
“My guess is it’s a really appealing franchise,” Manfred said. “They’ve done a great job building a fanbase. The in-ballpark experience in San Diego is probably one of our best. They’ve got great players and I expect there will be people that will be interested in buying.”
• Manfred declined to comment on the wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of former pitcher Tyler Skaggs against the Los Angeles Angels in which the family is arguing that the team knew or should have known that former communications director Eric Kay was distributing pills to players. Kay was sentenced to 22 years in prison in October 2022 for providing the fentanyl-laced pill that Skaggs ingested leading to his death on July 1, 2019.
• Manfred announced that MLB and PitchCom — the company behind the signal system pitchers and catchers have been allowed to use since 2022 after sign-stealing scandals surfaced — agreed to a six-year extension.
• Manfred also announced two major changes to the league’s All-Star Week schedule: The draft, which previously had its first round on Sunday, will hold the first round on Saturday, and the Futures Game will move from Saturday to Sunday.
