Less than a year after Olivia Finestead told the police that her baseball playing ex-fiancée choked her and kicked her and their child out of his home, she said Major League Baseball called her with an important update: Mike Clevinger was cleared to continue playing baseball. 

"Mike voluntarily agreed to go to therapy,” said Moira Weinberg, who at the time of MLB’s March 5, 2023 announcement was the league’s deputy general counsel and an executive within its Department of Investigations. “But there will be no suspension.” Finestead said Weinberg framed the league’s decision as good news.

She was taken aback. Finestead believed she had provided ample proof that Clevinger abused her and that he remained dangerous. So with her one-year-old in tow, Finestead told eyeblack that she rushed to her apartment, put her phone on speaker, and used her iPad camera to capture what Weinberg said next.¹

“So I just want to be clear,” Finestead told Weinberg during the alleged March 5 call before rattling off evidence she said she gave to the league. “Another domestic violence police report in another state with another girl, texts saying word for word the physical abuse he did to her, my photo of bruises on my body, that chewspit in the room”—a reference to Clevinger allegedly throwing chewing tobacco spit in their hotel room that landed on their infant—“none of that is substantial evidence?”

On the alleged recording, Weinberg insisted that MLB ran a thorough probe. But, she told Finestead the proof fell short. “We received everything that you have told us about. We have explored and followed up on it,” she said. “And there is not evidence to substantiate discipline here.” Finestead has since claimed that by allowing Clevinger to play without first giving him consequences, MLB enabled him to continue harassing her, including threatening her life.

What, exactly, MLB considers sufficient evidence for discipline is presently unclear. League policy states that “a single incident of abusive behavior” can serve as grounds for discipline. However, MLB declined to elaborate on its investigative process², nor did the league permit Weinberg to discuss the Clevinger probe with eyeblack. But, Finestead’s alleged recording also includes a more straightforward assertion about how the DOI handled her tips, Weinberg’s claim that MLB “explored and followed up” on all of Finestead’s leads.

Since 2023, MLB has defended its “comprehensive” investigation into Clevinger’s conduct with statements touting the “more than 15 people” the league interviewed for its probe. But, eyeblack spoke to three people who say MLB never interviewed them for its Clevinger investigation even though they claim to have witnessed or experienced his abuse. Two are former girlfriends who described physical, verbal, and emotional abuse, bringing the total number of exes who say the currently-injured Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher harmed them to five. A third person told eyeblack he witnessed Clevinger’s abuse and tried to make him stop, but never heard from MLB.

The women who say MLB did interview them about Clevinger for its investigation told eyeblack that they informed the league about who these witnesses were, why they mattered, and how to reach them. Now, they accuse MLB’s investigators—a team that includes former prosecutors and law enforcement officers—of failing to gather easily attainable, vital testimonies about Clevinger’s alleged history. And had MLB taken reasonable steps these women say they urged the league to follow before closing its probe, they believe Weinberg may have collected the proof she allegedly claimed she couldn’t find.

In Clevinger’s athletic prime, the veteran hurler racked up strikeouts with a mid-90s fastball and an array of bendy offspeed pitches. And in his early days as a Los Angeles Angels prospect, Clevinger’s then-girlfriend said he used his golden arm to hurl her car keys toward her head.³

According to the woman, ⁴ her word wasn’t enough. During her alleged February 16, 2023 conversation with MLB, investigators asked her repeatedly if she could produce video of Clevinger assaulting her, even though her relationship ended over a decade before the league launched a probe into the allegations against her ex-boyfriend.

“It's hard to pick up your phone and videotape someone whenever they're abusing you,” she told eyeblack. More frustrating, the woman said, is that the league repeatedly asked her for a form of proof she found nearly impossible to provide while apparently ignoring the testimonial evidence she offered: a partial witness to Clevinger’s alleged abuse in her father, Scott.

She told the league that Scott saw the smashed up property from the aftermath of their fights in the Charleston, SC apartment they shared. And if MLB invited him to discuss what he knew about her relationship with Clevinger—as she urged investigators to do because she didn’t have a smoking gun video—he would have told MLB that he contacted the Angels in April of 2012 to demand the team protect his daughter from their young prospect.

Scott told eyeblack that he wasn’t interviewed by MLB. In fact, he says the league never reached out.

“When they contacted [my daughter], I thought maybe [MLB was] going to actually conduct a real investigation,” said Scott. “They obviously didn't.”

But he told eyeblack about what he saw and shared with a woman he said led the Angels’ human resources department.

“I said, ‘This guy's got the personality that you don't need in public,’” Scott said. He warned them, he says, that if his daughter heard from Clevinger again, he would go public about their prospect’s conduct. According to Scott, the Angels rep promised him that the organization warned Clevinger that if he was caught contacting his daughter, the team would cut him from their roster. ⁵

On April 21, 2021, Los Angeles Dodgers star Trevor Bauer invited a San Diego woman to his Pasadena, CA home, where she said he strangled her until she was unconscious, then penetrated her anally without her consent. When the woman visited Bauer again on May 15, she said that he, again, choked her to unconsciousness, and that she woke up to the All Star pitcher punching her in the face. A forensic nurse examiner who evaluated the woman would testify witnessing “frankly alarming” bruising on her vagina she had “never seen” before in her 40 years of experience.

As one of four women who accused Bauer of domestic violence and sexual assault, Lindsey Hill's claims triggered MLB’s nine-month-long investigation into his alleged conduct. After reviewing Hill’s allegations alongside the other women who came forward, the commissioner’s office ended its Bauer probe on April 29, 2022 by issuing a two-season suspension, the longest ever for someone who the league ruled had violated its domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy.⁶ Once the highest paid baseball player in the world, Bauer has not pitched in MLB since the investigation. However, Hill told eyeblack that MLB’s Department of Investigations, including Weinberg, knew and asked about another player she had dated and accused of abuse: Mike Clevinger.

Hill said that in August 2021, during her first interview with the DOI for MLB’s Bauer probe, league investigators Moira Weinberg and Sheila Martinez⁷ asked her about her previous relationships with MLB players, including Clevinger. Hill said she dated Clevinger from September of 2020 until early in 2021.

“Did you ever report to anyone that Mike Clevinger had a drug problem?,” Hill recalled the investigators asking. “I remember being so terrified that they brought Mike up,” Hill told eyeblack. “I confidently said, ‘No, I've never ever reported to anybody.’” But Hill said she “felt very close with Moira right away,” enough to tell MLB’s lead investigator that Clevinger was “emotionally abusive” with her, claiming that as someone who worked for sober living facilities in San Diego while dating the then-Padres pitcher, she believed his actions were influenced by what she claimed was heavy LSD use.

Emotional abuse⁸ is covered under MLB’s policy under its definition of domestic violence and, per league policy, can serve as grounds for a suspension. Hill told eyeblack that Clevinger would frequently call her a “slut” or a “cunt” and falsely accuse her of cheating on him, an accusation repeated by other victims, including his girlfriend with the Angels, the mother of his two older children⁹, and Finestead. Rodgers said she grew close to Hill while she was a resident at Ohana House, Rodgers’ San Diego-based sober living facility for women. Describing herself as a survivor of an abusive, long term relationship, Rodgers told eyeblack she “was afraid for her because she was putting herself in these very harmful situations with a very scary human being.”

During Rodgers' sealed court deposition from August 14, 2023, which eyeblack obtained, she testified that she confronted Hill about bruises she saw on her neck. According to Rodgers, Hill said Clevinger choked her during an argument outside of a “friend’s home party.”

“[Clevinger] had gone into the restroom, [Hill] implied that he went in there to do more drugs,” Rodgers testified about her conversation with Hill. “And when he came out, he was very aggressive, more than usual, and he took her outside and he was strangling her.” 

The deposition wasn’t the first time Rodgers said she noticed Hill’s bruises. While questioning Rodgers, Bauer’s lawyers played snippets from her 2021 interview with the Pasadena Police Department.¹⁰ “Mike Clevinger, when he was with [the Padres], was using a lot of illegal drugs, and would get physical,” Rodgers told the police in the recording. “She had bruise marks on her arms when I saw her…and so she explained that, you know, he would physically rough her up.”

Clevinger did not respond to eyeblack’s questions about his alleged fights with Hill or drug use.

Hill addressed some of the complexities of her relationship to Clevinger. She appreciated that even though Clevinger and Bauer were teammates on the Cleveland Indians, the now-Padres pitcher “had her back” during Bauer’s criminal investigation. She told eyeblack that her romantic relationship with Clevinger “ended on good terms” because she sympathized with his alleged drug addiction.

Hill also said that during her sealed 2023 deposition, ¹¹ which she said lasted nine hours, Bauer’s attorneys questioned her about her dating history with other baseball players. Hill believes it was part of Bauer’s legal strategy to attack her credibility by portraying her as more than just promiscuous, but actively seeking out relationships with moneyed baseball players to extort them with faulty abuse claims.¹²

When Bauer’s lawyers brought up Rodgers’ court testimony detailing the bruises on her body, she told eyeblack that she knowingly and falsely denied what she had told Rodgers in 2020 (and MLB in 2021) about Clevinger’s abuse. “I said, 'You know what, Mary Lou has her own opinions,’”¹³ Hill recalled about her testimony. “‘She's a liar, and I don't know what else to say.'”

Hill said she did so because she was “protecting myself at that time” from Bauer using her dating history against her during his civil suits if they went to trial.“ It just sucks that I had to do that,” Hill told eyeblack about her denial. “Because, I mean, we all know that [Rodgers] was accurate.”¹⁴

On September 7, 2022, after MLB launched an active probe on Clevinger, Hill sent Weinberg an email containing alleged texts from the baseball player. Attached to Hill’s email to Weinberg are texts where Clevinger wrote, “I’m not sure why you’re talking to Olivia…but please stay out of my personal life.”¹⁵ According to Hill’s records, Clevinger texted her on June 26, two days after the San Diego Police Department witnessed Finestead locked out of their home in a domestic violence incident report that eyeblack obtained. (Finestead also provided an alleged recording of herself from the evening she said Clevinger choked her and locked her and their child out.)

Even though Hill claims MLB, and Weinberg specifically, knew she had alleged a contentious and abusive relationship with Clevinger, she said the league never discussed her ex-boyfriend with her again. 

Though Hill maintains that she had a largely positive experience working with MLB during its Bauer case, her friendship with Finestead and her brief exposure to the Clevinger investigation changed her perspective on the league’s approach to investigations. “I still, to this day, am very upset that MLB has never reached out to me,” she told eyeblack. Hill argued that “MLB does not stay consistent” when investigating its players, particularly when the league doesn’t have a video of someone directly assaulting their alleged victim. “How do we support victims like Olivia when there is not videos, [but] there is victim testimony and police reports?”

When Finestead publicized her allegations against Clevinger in 2023, drawing coverage from The Athletic that confirmed MLB’s investigation, multiple women reached out to her alleging they went through some version of the same. One woman, who asked not to be named to prevent retaliation from Clevinger, lent her support to Finestead across Instagram direct messages that eyeblack obtained from court records.

“I sympathize with you,” the woman wrote to Finestead. “I know exactly how you must feel and what your [sic] going through in terms of the manipulation and mind games.” 

“I saw it happen with him and [the other co-parent]¹⁶  he used the same threat against her and it never came to fruition,” referring to Clevinger’s alleged attempts to gain custody of his other children.

This woman told eyeblack that she dated Clevinger in 2019 and 2020 and likened his alleged manipulation of her to “Ted Bundy at his craft.”

“Obviously [Clevinger is] not a serial killer,” she told eyeblack. “But, like, just such a master of manipulation,” one that she said successfully isolated her from family and friends while they dated. “He was in control,” she said of her relationship with the then-baseball star. “You always were at his place. He would never stay at yours [because] he wanted to control you.” 

The woman also told eyeblack that in 2020, she “saw him verbally abuse” his other co-parent over the phone, calling her a “fat whore,” “lazy,” and “useless.” She added that she saw Clevinger tell the woman’s father “your daughter's a piece of shit.” After, she said “he'd be screaming at her on the phone saying the same thing.”¹⁷

Finestead told eyeblack she was confident that MLB knew of this woman’s existence during its investigation because she gave league investigators screenshots of the woman’s direct messages that included her name and Instagram handle. But the woman told eyeblack that league investigators never reached out to her.

Since MLB created its Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Policy in 2015, Mike Clevinger is only the third player investigated through its process without a suspension. MLB’s policy is, itself, a direct response to the National Football League’s 2014 Ray Rice scandal. After video footage of Rice—then a star running back for the Baltimore Ravens—assaulting and dragging his unconscious fiancée, Janay,¹⁸ leaked to the press, the outcry from fans, advocates for domestic violence victims, and even Congress over the NFL’s seemingly light two-game suspension provoked a public reckoning on how American sports leagues addressed violence against women. MLB didn’t want to leave itself vulnerable to similar disgrace.

“It was really the Ray Rice incident that brought this issue to the forefront for us,” said Dan Halem, who now serves as MLB’s deputy commissioner, the #2 behind Rob Manfred. The league and MLBPA, its players union, formed the policy that would eventually be used to investigate players accused of abuse, including Clevinger.

Moira Weinberg—Manfred’s designated lead on investigating allegations of violence against women—allegedly defended the league’s choice to clear Clevinger without disciplining him as a “good outcome.” But Clevinger’s ex-fiancée, Olivia Finestead, passionately disagreed during her alleged recording of their conversation.

She believed the league had received enough supplementary testimonies, photos, and documents spanning his entire pro baseball career to hold him accountable for his alleged abuse. Finestead said she provided league investigators with contacts for other ex-girlfriends who could, using their own testimonies, corroborate abusive dynamics that preceded her relationship. She told eyeblack that she didn’t know that multiple people she thought could be useful resources would say MLB never even contacted them during its probe, let alone interviewed them to verify their claims.

But, during the alleged call, Weinberg appeared to blame Finestead for complicating MLB’s investigation. Specifically, Weinberg cited Finestead’s texts to Clevinger that the league took issue with, arguing the ex-fiancée’s crude and threatening messages tainted her credibility.

“It is your account of how that evidence came about versus his account of how it came about,” Weinberg told Finestead in the alleged recording. “And then that's where it gets into the credibility battle for lack of a better term, between him and you.” 

Weinberg began proving her point by paraphrasing individual texts she said Finestead sent Clevinger¹⁹ such as one she characterized as “saying you want to kill him,” another where she said Finestead “tried manipulating him” or a text where she accused Finestead of admitting she was “looking to use [MLB’s investigative] process to drag him through the mud if he stays clean.” Finestead challenged Weinberg’s interpretation of her texts. She suggested to MLB’s lead investigator that her disparaging messages to a man she said strangled her, “emotionally abused” her, and locked her and their child out of their home, should be  “a reaction against abuse.”

Finestead asked Weinberg: “So my lesson here is that all the texts I've sent are the reason Mike's not getting suspended?”

“It is part of the reason,” Weinberg confirmed. 

“I just can't believe you guys did nothing,” Finestead replied seconds before the clip of her alleged call cuts out.

After the call, Finestead said she posted a clip of the conversation she shared with eyeblack to her Instagram story. Though the four clips of alleged call footage total a little less than five minutes, Finestead said the portion she posted was roughly six seconds long.²⁰

Within minutes of her post, Finestead said she received a text from MLB senior counsel Mehtab Brar, a former Department of Investigations official who served as a regular point of contact during the investigation. Brar allegedly texted Clevinger’s ex-fiancée informing her that league investigators were cutting off all phone contact.

“That said, MLB remains committed to offering you services and you can continue to reach out to the resources that I previously provided to you,” Brar added, ²¹ an apparent reference to the collection of domestic violence hotlines managed by the league and third parties.

Since the commissioner’s office cleared Clevinger to play, Weinberg has continued to advance the league’s ranks. In 2024, she was tasked with leading the league’s high profile gambling probe into three-time MVP Shohei Ohtani and his translator, Ippei Mizuhara. And in 2025, league commissioner Rob Manfred promoted Weinberg to Vice President of Investigations and Security.

Manfred has said in recent years that he believes his league’s domestic violence policy is working.

“I think that we negotiated a really effective policy,” Manfred said in a press conference ahead of the 2023 MLB All-Star Game in Seattle, referencing the league’s talks with the MLB Players Association. “I think that the policy has proved to be flexible and durable enough to deal with a rather wide variety of situations.” 

The commissioner reasoned that “all of the discipline that's been imposed, with one exception”—an apparent reference to Trevor Bauer’s contentious battle with MLB over his suspension length—“has been, you know, essentially agreed upon. And I think that's a sign of the policy being in the right place.”

When eyeblack asked how MLB was incorporating feedback from people who participated in league investigations, Manfred stressed that players were central to evaluating and developing the league’s process.

“Look, we pay a lot of attention to the reaction of the players who are subject to the policy,” he said, citing both the MLB Players Association and “individual representatives” of players under investigation. Manfred also said the league works “really hard” to ensure its processes are open for people who come forward with allegations.

“Obviously those victims—you know, for people who want to use that word—are a really important piece of the puzzle.”

eyeblack shared Manfred’s comments to Clevinger’s girlfriend from his days with the Angels. She was enraged.

“So because [players] agreed upon it, [Manfred] thinks that's the right policy?” she asked. “I don't agree with his statement. Just because they all came to the same agreement doesn't make it a good policy.”

Rather than center on people who experience violence, she said the league prioritized “what's in their benefit for players that they hired to play.” Clevinger’s ex added that “They're looking out for themselves first and foremost.”

She told eyeblack that MLB sent her the same memo that Brar told Finestead about when MLB allegedly cut her off from phone calls. She said she never used any of its resources.

“It’s, like, 10 years too late,” she says.