11 hours ago
After a betting probe, an All-American went undrafted. Now he's one step from MLB
The clock was ticking, and Keaton Anthony had no fallback plan.
Anthony, an All-American baseball player at Iowa, had been told ahead of the 2023 MLB Draft that he would likely go between the third and seventh rounds. It was a reasonable prediction: He'd gotten calls from the Red Sox and Tigers in the sixth and seventh rounds the year prior, before he'd become one of the country's top college players.
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But it was also before Anthony was among 26 Iowa student-athletes investigated for violating the NCAA's sports betting policies in early May 2023, effectively ending his college career four weeks early.
The eighth round came, then the ninth. Nothing. Anthony waited by the phone. Day 3 of the draft arrived. Anthony's agent, Barry Meister, told him, 'Surely, it'll happen today.'
Still, no one came calling for the First-Team All-Big Ten and All-American player until the Phillies reached out during the 20th and final round.
'I didn't know if my career was over,' he said.
It would have been unfathomable three months earlier, as Anthony powered an Iowa team to the verge of its first NCAA Regional since 2017. Then came the investigation. Iowa withheld Anthony and three of his teammates from competition after state law enforcement alleged they were among dozens of student-athletes at Iowa and Iowa State who had gambled on sports. Anthony was not accused of betting on his own team, but the NCAA does not permit student-athletes to bet on any sports it sponsors at any level.
Anthony could not play in the final games of his redshirt-sophomore season on a team with College World Series aspirations. Scouts' interest cooled. The NCAA eventually deemed him ineligible until May 2024. Then he went undrafted.
'I didn't know what I was going to do. So (I'm happy) just being able to bounce back from that and be where I am here today,' Anthony said.
'Here' is Triple-A Lehigh Valley, where Anthony has batted .400/.442/.525 for a .967 OPS since his promotion from Double A on June 11, though he recently hit the injured list with an adductor strain. What got Anthony a step away from MLB — manipulating at-bats, frequently finding the barrel — is what made him the star of an ascendant Iowa team.
The NCAA investigation came amid the rapid growth of legal sports betting in the United States, with mobile betting ads ubiquitous at live sporting events and on broadcasts. College students, in turn, have flocked to gambling companies' apps: A 2023 NCAA survey found that 58 percent of 18- to 22-year-olds had participated in at least one sports betting activity.
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But what is legal for a typical college student may not be allowed for NCAA student-athletes, creating challenges the NCAA and institutions are working to navigate in a quickly evolving environment.
While the NCAA does not permit betting on professional sports that the NCAA sponsors on an amateur level, the Division I Council voted this week in favor of changing this policy. The organization also decreased penalties for athletes who placed wagers on teams that weren't their own in the wake of the Iowa and Iowa State investigation.
Asked about Anthony's sports betting violation, the NCAA told The Athletic it does not comment on specific eligibility cases due to student privacy laws.
Now Anthony, 24, is among more than two dozen student-athletes who filed a federal lawsuit against the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) and other parties over the investigation, alleging the department violated athletes' civil rights by conducting a warrantless search. He declined to address what specifically led him to be investigated.
'It's just a tough part of my life,' he said. 'I don't really like to think back about it.'
Everyone around Anthony agrees: He has a knack for finding the barrel.
Iowa hitting coach Marty Sutherland first saw Anthony at a summer workout while recruiting in Georgia and thought, 'This kid looks like he moves pretty well and has a pretty good feel for making good contact.' Phillies area scout Justin Munson, who signed Anthony, was reminded of third baseman Alec Bohm, also one of his signees — 'big body like that, similar swing path.'
'He always hit,' Munson said. 'He didn't swing-and-miss a whole lot. Had power in all fields and just did a really good job of showing up, being on time always.'
Anthony arrived at Iowa as a pitcher and utility player. But it was clear by his redshirt-sophomore season in 2023: Anthony was a hitter, among the nation's best. He was tabbed All-Big Ten and a third-team All-American in 2023 after leading Iowa in batting average (.389) and doubles (22), along with nine homers and 38 RBIs.
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There's a quote Sutherland shows his players every year. It's from a postgame media scrum after Anthony hit a two-run homer against Purdue in May 2022. Anthony recounted every pitch: the 1-0 slider he didn't like, the next two fastballs, the 2-2 fastball he fouled away, the slider he took for a home run. The whys and hows of every decision he made.
'This is what it means to be a hitter,' Sutherland tells players. 'We can work on your swing and how you move and your explosiveness and how hard you hit the ball. … But this is what starts to separate you as a hitter.'
Anthony's gift for finding the barrel helped him. So did hitting the weight room. But perhaps most valuable was his confidence.
'I've never seen Keaton step in the batter's box against anybody, regardless of who it was, that he didn't feel like he was better than they were,' Iowa coach Rick Heller said. 'You knew that he felt like he was going to hit the ball hard off of that guy.'
Iowa baseball was 32-11 when coaches and players learned about the investigation in early May 2023.
An Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) agent had used geofencing technology from Canadian company GeoComply to create digital boundaries around Iowa's and Iowa State's athletic facilities in early 2023, per a federal complaint. The agent, Brian Sanger, said in a January 2024 deposition that he did not obtain a warrant to use the technology. But superiors gave him the go-ahead to place boundaries around the facilities, The Athletic reported in April 2024.
The objective, per charging affidavits and court testimony, was to investigate whether athletes, coaches and athletic personnel were improperly gambling or fixing sporting events.
Sanger identified gambling account numbers but not account holders, then subpoenaed sports betting companies' records to reveal who had engaged in betting. Names were brought to Iowa and Iowa State. Iowa withheld identified student-athletes from competition and notified the NCAA of potential violations. Prosecutors charged 15 Iowa and Iowa State athletes with underage gambling — the legal sports betting age in Iowa is 21 — and tampering with records, among other charges, in August 2023.
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Anthony was investigated but not charged. Twenty-six athletes across the Iowa baseball, football, men's basketball, men's track and field and wrestling teams were withheld from competing with their teams. Punishments ranged from loss of NCAA eligibility to prosecution, though the state dropped charges related to the investigation in March 2024.
There was no clarity about when Anthony or his teammates might be absolved of wrongdoing, so they continued to practice to be ready if they were reinstated.
'I was really upset,' Anthony said. 'It was just tough. You're playing with all of your best friends, and you have to leave them — it sucked.'
The dates kept shifting. Maybe there would be an outcome before their road trip to Northwestern. Before they left for the Big Ten Tournament. Before they left for the Regional.
'Trying to manage that was obviously very difficult and very difficult for the players, too,' Heller said. 'They just kept stringing it out. Once we got to the Big Ten Tournament, it was pretty apparent that it was not going to happen.'
Student-athletes who gambled on their school were subject to a one-year NCAA ban, The Athletic reported in 2024, and those who wagered on their team received a lifetime ban. The NCAA suspended those who bet on NCAA events, while punishments for those who bet on non-NCAA events varied depending on the amount wagered.
Anthony was deemed ineligible for a year, but he did not return to school.
Iowa's athletic department declined The Athletic's request for comment.
The Hawkeyes lost to Indiana State in the Regional Final without Anthony, their closer and their backup catcher. Had those players been there, Heller said, 'that team had the potential to keep going and maybe go to Omaha.'
The ending was bitter. But, Anthony said, he would not change his time at Iowa if he could, calling the saga a 'great learning step' that eventually made him stronger.
Sutherland and Heller understand what their players were accused of is not allowed under NCAA rules. What's frustrating, Heller said, is that betting on other sports and teams is happening among '90 percent' of male college athletes from JUCO to Division I. He feels Iowa was made the scapegoat.
Sutherland agreed: 'You just feel bad for (Anthony) because the punishment doesn't necessarily fit the crime.'
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Anthony's draft stock was tarnished by the gambling investigation. Yet MLB maintains ties to gambling companies, and MLB players can bet on sporting events other than baseball, per the collective bargaining agreement.
'I would just plead with those scouts, like, 'What are we doing?'' Sutherland said. ''Can we get off our pedestal? He didn't hurt anybody. He didn't do anything that all of the players in your organization don't do. The kid's a really good player. He's a good kid.''
Amid the investigation, Munson, the Phillies scout, asked Anthony: Hey man, what happened?
Munson said Anthony told him he had never bet on Iowa baseball, and never bet large sums. Munson walked away feeling like Anthony was honest.
'It was just him being a kid,' Munson said. 'I didn't think it was a huge deal. I think the NCAA made an example out of him, unfortunately for him. But it didn't deter me at all.'
Brian Barber, the Phillies' director of amateur scouting, and Luke Murton, then the director of minor league hitting, were on board with adding Anthony, who agreed to a deal with the club shortly after the 2023 draft. General manager Preston Mattingly, who was head of player development at the time, said the Phillies did their background work and felt Anthony 'could be a position player for us that would have a chance to play in the major leagues.'
Still, Anthony said he is '100 percent' sure the situation affected his draft stock. That's what he told The Athletic, and what is stated in the federal complaint filed in the Southern District of Iowa in Des Moines, in which more than two dozen plaintiffs alleged DCI violated athletes' civil rights and conducted an unreasonable seizure via the fourth and 14th amendments.
A DCI spokesperson told The Athletic the organization does not comment on matters involving pending litigation.
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Betting, though illegal for NCAA student-athletes, remains intertwined with sports. The ads are non-stop. Prior to last Saturday's Phillies-Mets game, 'sportsbook VIPs' from BetMGM and ESPNBet threw ceremonial first pitches. An ESPNBet 'over-under' game sometimes plays between innings at Citizens Bank Park, where Anthony hopes to one day play. Many states and professional sports organizations have embraced gambling, with ads at ballparks and casinos or sportsbooks located nearby. (The Athletic has a partnership with BetMGM.)
'Most of these guys, they're betting $5 or something like that because it's really easy,' Sutherland said of young athletes betting. 'I mean, it's advertised across every commercial that they're watching (with) an NCAA-affiliated sport. It's just commercial after commercial. … It's way different than when I played, which was, 'Hey, you play fantasy football' or you had to go to a casino and that was it. Right now, these guys can do it from their phones.'
Anthony has hit above .300 every season he's been in the minors. He's stuck at first base, and spending extra time in the weight room in the offseason helped him gain more of a power stroke. He has a .914 OPS overall and 31 extra-base hits so far this season, up from 30 across 2024.
An American League evaluator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could talk freely, said it's difficult to bet on Anthony's power without 'wholesale changes' to his swing: 'There's a lot of hard contact. … It's a very unique swing path, and it's not conducive to lifting the ball.'
Heller said Anthony got along with pretty much everyone at Iowa, his confidence rubbing off on others. It's been similar in the Phillies organization, teammates say, as when Anthony helped Double-A infielder Carson DeMartini navigate his first spring training. Said DeMartini: 'I would probably have missed some meetings without him.'
DeMartini ended up taking Anthony's place at Double A. Anthony, promoted June 11, got the call at 11:30 the night before. He packed up his apartment and reported to the Lehigh Valley IronPigs the next afternoon.
Blue skies hung over batting practice that Wednesday at Coca-Cola Park in Allentown, Pa. It was warm on the field, with the Triple-A players gathering to watch the Phillies play the Cubs on the scoreboard. Teammates were already joking with Anthony about needing his help in the midst of a season-worst losing streak.
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He is two years removed from the investigation, and a phone call away from the major leagues. As Anthony watched his new teammates playing catch, he said he does not like to dwell on the past or the future.
'I like to just be in the present,' he said.
