Yesterday, as I messed around with my Twitter account, John Perrotto of the great website Baseball Prospectus, tweeted the following:
Keep hearing #Marlins are very willing to trade Josh Johnson right now for the right package.
It immediately evolves into a blog from MLBTR that reads: “Marlins Looking To Deal Josh Johnson”
I immediately responded with a tweet of my own.
Marlins Looking To Deal Josh Johnson? Ya gotta love Twitter. It beats the Joke of the Day calender I got last Xmas. Sorry Perrotto, not buying it.
Less than 3 minutes after my tweet, long time Marlins beat writer and MLB reporter for the Marlins website, Joe Frisaro, quickly responded:
#Marlins There is going to be plenty of speculation about Josh Johnson being trade bait. From what I’m hearing, don’t buy into it.
Thank you Mr. Frisaro.
(Sorry for the cheesy Photoshop image, it was a rush job.)
I love Twitter, but if I had to pick just one fault, it’s that it has evolved into a source of many outlandish claims and unsubstantiated rumors.
Legitimate rumors that were once backed with at least a small sampling of investigative reporting, have now been reduced to a one-sentence blurb.
Mostly it’s just bits of a conversation someone had at the local sports bar with some of their inebriated friends who are suddenly now referred to as “sources”. Luckily, it doesn’t require that much skill in separating the wheat from the chaff; all it takes is a little common sense.
Why would the Florida Marlins trade one of baseball’s best young righthanded starters when he is still under team control for two more years? The truth is that they are actually negotiating on a long term deal, a fact that was confirmed by a team source not long ago.
As I said in an earlier post at the start of the Hot Stove season, I’m taking on the role of policing the rumor mill and calling out those whose rumors fail to pass the sniff test.
What gets me is how so many fans can easily believe a rumor that a pitcher like Josh Johnson is trade bait, all while considering that their own team’s infinitely less talented prospects are untouchable and shouldn’t be traded.
It ain’t rocket science.
