Fletcher’s go-to pitch is the knuckleball, the one he threw 90 percent of the time on this mild June night in his debut for the Class AA Mississippi Braves, a magical pitch that floats unpredictably toward home plate. Fletcher’s catcher hadn’t seen a knuckleball since Little League.
“I catch 100,000 balls a year, and only Fletch can pitch like him,” says Tyler Troubet, 23. “He’s really hard to pitch.”
Fletcher, 30, has spent most of his career in a stadium nine times this size, as an infielder rather than a pitcher, during his six seasons with the Los Angeles Angels, where his tenacious hitting and flawless defense made him a fan favorite and a frequent MVP voter.
But for the past month, Fletcher has been in baseball’s hellish state, pitching unknown pitches to young hitters making $600 a week. He’s the central figure in an explosive scandal that has dominated baseball headlines all season.
As the MLB season began, news broke that millions of dollars had been transferred from Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani’s bank account to illegal gambling parlours. Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, pleaded guilty to stealing the money without Ohtani’s knowledge to pay off mounting gambling debts.
Fletcher, Ohtani’s friend and former Angels teammate, drew attention last month when ESPN reported that Fletcher had gambled with the same bookmaker and that Fletcher’s childhood friend, former minor league baseball player Colby Schultz, had bet on Angels games when Fletcher was with the team.
The conspiracy surrounding Fletcher comes as the sports world seems to be gripped by the same scandal involving professional athletes or their associates betting with illegal bookmakers or on their own sports.
The wide-ranging federal investigation that busted Matthew Bowyer, the bookmaker who accepted millions of dollars stolen by Ohtani, also uncovered illegal bets by other prominent athletes, including former Dodgers phenom Yasiel Puig and Maverick Carter, the business manager and partner of NBA superstar LeBron James.
Separately, MLB last week banned San Diego Padres infielder Tucupita Marcano for life and four other players for one year after they were found to have bet on baseball games using a legal sports betting app. In April, the NBA banned Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter for life after he was accused of rigging games he was involved in to repay money he owed to bookmakers.
A person familiar with Bowyer’s gambling business confirmed to The Washington Post that Fletcher was a customer but said the bets were not on baseball. Betting on other sports with an illegal betting house is a violation of MLB rules but is treated as a relatively minor infraction.
In court documents obtained by The Washington Post, Schultz’s lawyers denied that he used “inside information” from Fletcher to bet on the Angels and said Schultz “has nothing to do with the ongoing criminal proceedings involving Mizuhara.” People with knowledge of Bowyer’s activities said that Schultz was no longer a professional baseball player when he made the bet with Bowyer.
MLB has said it is investigating Fletcher’s gambling, but that investigation has stalled from the start, according to people familiar with the matter, and MLB has We are awaiting developments in the ongoing law enforcement investigation.
Fletcher, meanwhile, has become increasingly unknown in baseball. The Angels traded him to the Braves in December, but he had only nine at-bats with the major league team between lengthy minor league stints. This month, the Braves moved him from Class AAA, the minor league’s top division, to Class AA, where Fletcher last played as a 23-year-old.
Along the way, Fletcher showed off his knuckleball, wowing his agent and former major league managers.
Angels manager Joe Maddon said the unexpected new skill was Fletcher’s attempt to build a resume as a “complete utility man” to return to the majors. “David just wants to be a major league baseball player,” Maddon said. “And I think he’s signaling to the Angels, whether intentionally or not, ‘I can pitch if you want.'”
Last week, in his debut with the Mississippi Braves, before a crowd of 3,506, Fletcher stepped back and unleashed the slowest pitch Troubé had ever caught as a pro, a 65-mph butterfly, so novel that the Pensacola Blue Wahoos sprinted to the edge of the dugout.
At first, they seemed to handle it OK, getting two hits and a run in the first inning. Then Fletcher got into a rhythm and “learned on the fly and got better every inning,” Troubet said.
Fletcher did not allow a hit over the next five innings.
“There was a lot of dancing,” Pensacola right fielder Tanner Allen said, “like someone was throwing a wiffle ball in a hurricane.”
On May 8, shortly after Fletcher was demoted to Class AAA, his Gwinnett Stripers were down 8-1 after eight innings and short on pitchers.
Fletcher, who had never pitched in college, volunteered to throw the knuckleball, and he shut out the opposing team on 14 pitches and then struck out three batters in the eighth inning of another blowout win a week later.
Like many things about Fletcher, the origins of his sudden interest in pitching were a mystery. One of his agents, Jeff Borris, said he only learned of Fletcher’s ability as a pitcher after his first minor league appearance. “I didn’t know he had that kind of ability,” Borris said.
He struggled in two relief appearances the following week, giving up six runs in four innings, but in his first appearance with Gwinnett, he allowed just two runs and three hits in five innings while striking out six, including MLB prospect Jaxon Holliday. Three days later, he was demoted to Mississippi.
His new teammates didn’t know what to expect: Most were at least five years younger than him, none had played in the major leagues, none were making anywhere near his $6.5 million salary.
They met a player who “acted just like everybody else here,” Troubet said. “It’s great to see someone who’s spent a long time in the major leagues and had a lot of success come here and just act like one of the guys.”
It’s unclear whether Fletcher’s unusual situation was a welcome one. The Mississippi Braves and Pensacola Blue Wahoos agreed to allow The Washington Post to interview players on the condition that questions be limited to baseball. Fletcher himself declined an interview request, and an Atlanta Braves spokesman declined to comment.
The Orange County, California native was not long ago an unheralded star for his hometown Angels. He batted .319 in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and the following season Sports Illustrated called him “baseball’s most unheralded talent.” He played for Italy in last year’s World Baseball Classic. While his teammates clowned on social media, Fletcher just looked into the camera and shook his head.
That calm confidence no doubt helped Fletcher, an avid gambler and poker regular. Online databases show Fletcher competing in poker tournaments at casinos across the country. During baseball’s lockout after the 2021 season, he played poker with podcaster and adult film actor Adam22 in a livestreamed game at Hustler Casino.
Fletcher also hosted an annual charity poker game with a $350 buy-in to sit at a table. Sponsors of the poker tournament included the Ballengee Group, the agency that represents Fletcher. The agency’s founder, James Ballengee, played golf with Bowyer and NBA legend Charles Barkley at the celebrity tournament American Century Championship in 2019. Ballengee did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Fletcher’s agent, Boris, is also an avid poker player and has attended his charity tournaments. He described Fletcher as a “very good recreational poker player,” but not at a professional level. “If he could play professional-level poker, he would,” Boris argued. He refused to comment on any gambling scandals.
Ohtani joined the Angels in 2018 and quickly became baseball’s most successful two-way player (batter and pitcher) since Babe Ruth. Fletcher also made his debut that same season. Fletcher reportedly considered Ohtani “good friends” and fondly spoke of playing against his former Angels teammate in the World Baseball Classic.
Fletcher also developed a friendship with Mizuhara, who was Otani’s interpreter and best friend at the time, through poker. “Ippei is good at poker,” Fletcher told AngelsWin.com in 2021. But Fletcher boasted that he was the best bluffer on the team. Multiple sources say Mizuhara met Bowyer at a poker game with Fletcher.
Maddon, who managed the Angels, Tampa Bay Rays and Chicago Cubs over 19 seasons, suggested the proliferation of gambling scandals in baseball is linked to a rise in casual gambling by fans that has been encouraged across the sports industry.
“This isn’t just a baseball issue,” Maddon said. “Gambling is everywhere. From the lottery to cell phones, everything encourages gambling. So why should anybody be surprised by the fact that it’s permeating baseball?”
“Backyard Wiffle Ball Game”
As dusk fell on the yachts docked in the harbor behind the outfield fence in Pensacola, it was Fletcher’s knuckleball, not his role in the ongoing scandal, that was buzzing from the press box to the dugout.
“It was good to play against the knuckleball and see what it’s like and experience the fun of it,” Pensacola catcher Joe Mack said. “It was fun.”
En route to a 6-3 loss, Mack recalled his teammates “swinging and missing, smiling and having fun.”
Behind the catcher, Trube watched as the Pensacola hitters laughed after a particularly nasty knuckleball. “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” one of the opponents was heard to say.
“It felt like a backyard game of wiffle ball,” Torbe said.
At least one player didn’t get the joke. For Fletcher, the knuckleball isn’t just a silly tactic; it could be a lifeline in a career mired in uncertainty.
When asked if Fletcher’s sudden two-way debut was a smart move for his career, Boris laughed and said, “You’ll have to wait until he gets a few more starts before you ask me.” (In fact, in Sunday’s rematch with the Blue Wahoos, Fletcher had a rather poor performance, giving up two home runs and four runs in a loss for the Braves.)
Mississippi State pitching coach Wes McGuire had never coached a knuckleballer and wasn’t sure what Fletcher was up to until he met him. It didn’t take long for McGuire to realize that “he’s really serious about being a pitcher.”
As teams get more cautious about pitch counts and consider how to best utilize roster spots, Fletcher is pursuing a skill set that no one else in MLB has achieved today except for former teammate Ohtani: a player who can play defense every day and pitch a few innings whenever needed. That “versatility” will be “the biggest value” for Fletcher if he can find consistency on the mound, McGwire said.
That meant mastering baseball’s most difficult pitch to control and wielding a floater despite questions about his status in the game.
“I can’t believe there’s no team that wants him right now,” Maddon said. “The fact that he’s throwing the knuckleball, [where he was] It’s hard to believe, it was just a few years ago.”
