Bad beat: MLB umpire's gambling scandal looks even worse than Ippei Mizuhara

Soon after the 2024 regular season began, a bombshell report emerged involving Shohei Ohtani's interpreter and long-time friend, Ippei Mizuhara. Ohtani accused Mizuhara of a massive theft, which Mizuhara would later plead guilty to.

Mizuhara wound up going to great lengths to steal tens of millions of dollars from Ohtani's bank account in order to fund his gambling addiction. He was fired by the Los Angeles Dodgers immediately after this became public, and is awaiting sentencing currently.

Mizuhara's situation was a bad one, obviously, but MLB's latest gambling scandal involving umpire Pat Hoberg might be even worse.

Hoberg's firing was upheld on Monday by MLB, as he was caught sharing sports betting accounts with a professional poker player who bet on baseball. While there is no evidence that Hoberg bet on games himself, having an account linked with someone who certainly did is a bad look.

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Pat Hoberg's betting scandal might be worse look for MLB than Ippei Mizuhara's

The real kicker with Hoberg's scandal is that he deleted messages that would have been central to MLB's investigation. If Hoberg had nothing to hide, why was he deleting messages? Deleting messages makes it feel as if his claim that he never bet on games really hard to believe.

What makes Hoberg's involvement in a scandal like this particularly interesting is that he might have been MLB's best umpire when it comes down to calling balls and strikes. Hoberg famously called a perfect game in Game 2 of the 2022 World Series, not missing a single call as the home plate umpire. In a time where it feels as if umpires are consistently underwhelming in that area, Hoberg excelled. If he did bet on baseball, it didn't show in games he had the most influence over as the home plate umpire.

It cannot be overstated just how bad of a look this is. It's one thing to have an interpreter potentially betting on baseball games, but it's another thing entirely to have an umpire who can easily impact the outcome of any given contest betting on games.

MLB began investigating Hoberg during Spring Training of last season, and he did not umpire a single game during the regular campaign. Now, it's confirmed that he won't be umpiring an MLB game again.