One year after Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani was exonerated by the federal government and Major League Baseball, one of his former teammates is still under investigation for illegal sports betting.
David Fletcher remains on the Atlanta Braves’ payroll, playing out the final year of his guaranteed five-year contract with the team’s Double-A affiliate. A new report by Bob Nightengale of USA Today suggests Fletcher could face a significant ban from MLB.
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Bowyer spoke to Nightengale at length for the first time about Fletcher’s gambling habits — as well as his own.
Fletcher “never bet on baseball, he just bet on sports,” Bowyer told Nightengale in an interview published Sunday. “I feel bad for him. This tarnished him. He did nothing wrong in my opinion. He was just doing what I think more than half of the athletes are doing.”
California has not legalized sports betting. Fletcher would not be penalized for placing “smaller wagers on football games” — as Bowyer claims — in a state where sports betting is legal.
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MLB Rule 21(d)(3) forbids illegal betting through bookmakers like Bowyer, and violators can be penalized “as the Commissioner deems appropriate in light of the facts and circumstances of the conduct.”
Ippei Mizuhara was fired as Ohtani’s interpreter in March 2024, after the Dodgers learned he had stolen money from Ohtani’s bank account in order to pay down his gambling losses with a series of wire transfers to Bowyer’s associates.
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Fletcher knew Bowyer, who lives in Orange County, before Mizuhara placed his first bet with the bookmaker. Last year, Fletcher told ESPN that he was present at the 2021 poker game in San Diego where Mizuhara first met Bowyer.
Fletcher said he did not introduce the interpreter to the bookie but that Bowyer gained entry to the poker game at the Angels’ team hotel through an acquaintance of Fletcher.
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Fletcher also told ESPN that he knew Bowyer was a bookmaker at the time of the poker game, but claimed he never placed a bet himself with Bowyer’s organization.
Sorting out the discrepancy in those stories could help explain why the investigation has persisted as long as it has. Bowyer is awaiting sentencing in October after cooperating with the federal government into the investigation that ultimately led Mizuhara to be sentenced to nearly five years in prison.
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A utility player in Anaheim, Fletcher was traded by the Angels to the Braves in Dec. 2023. He appeared in five major league games for Atlanta last year, going 2 for 8.
After returning to the minor leagues, Fletcher reinvented himself as a knuckleball pitcher, appearing in 22 games at the Double-A and Triple-A levels. He is now listed as an infielder again with the Columbus Clingstones, whose season began Friday.
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