The Paul Skenes trade talk is showing how broken sports media has become
This story has checked every single box that comes in every conversation about why sports media sucks.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are bad. Not just their standard “one of the bottom ten teams in the league,” bad, but more of the “reaching historic levels of inept” bad that is becoming all too common in Major League Baseball.1
Unlike most bad teams, the Pirates have a player who unanimously considered “very good.” Some would call him “dominant,” or “captivating,” or some other word that means that it is worth spending hours of your day watching a bad baseball team play.
Paul Skenes is a force of nature on the mound once every five days. His arsenal of pitches ranging from insanely fast to insanely fast with movement makes him one of the best pitchers in baseball, and he’s been a major leaguer for only 195 innings. His 7.8 WAR is already 15% of the way to being the all-time leader in the Pirates franchise, and there’s a real chance he could set the record before he even hits free agency!
But of course, because the Pirates are bad, and most importantly, the Pirates are cheap, most people do not expect Paul Skenes to be in Pittsburgh for his entire career. The history of the Pittsburgh Pirates last run in 2013-15 shows that once the Pirates window of competition closed, they are open, maybe even giddy, to trade expensive good veterans for cheaper, younger, less proven talent.2
I say all that to say quite plainly: trading Paul Skenes is the most likely outcome for how his Pirates tenure will end. I’m not using this post to talk about why I’m mad about that. (Because I am, in fact, mad.) I am talking about how in the span of about a week, the modern media has taken what amounted to a throwaway line at the bar and turned it into an entire media content story that has no bearing on reality.
It’s important to note that sports media coverage in the United States specifically is at a crucial breaking point. Streaming has recreated cable with extra steps, and ESPN, the “worldwide leader in sports,” wants a piece of that action. Over the last 6-12 months, ESPN has made it clear that in this current form of the attention economy, they would like to stay relevant less by quality reporting and commentary like Around the Horn and more like adding more male talking heads and male screaming heads. The canary in this particular coal mine was the dump truck of money they backed at professional “Come at me bro, naw I’m just playing,” wannabe wrestler Pat McAfee, and the fact that his particular brand of abrasion and controversy is in fact profitable.
In a long tradition of kissing the ring of the biggest name on the network, many ESPN personalities appear regularly on McAfee’s show to talk loosely about their specific area of expertise. One of those personalities is Actual Baseball Reporter (and Cuse alum3) Jeff Passan, who also is very comfortable using his name and platform to talk about baseball related topics that stray far from “just reporting the facts.”
One of those topics that blends his excellent reporting with his commentary on the sport is the aforementioned bad baseball team in Pittsburgh. Read the link for the full history of Passan’s accurate reporting and appreciated commentary on the actions of a organization that stretch the concept of “fielding a competitive team,” but the most recent addition to the criticism had nothing to do with actual reporting, and more with an assumption blended with modern baseball roster management philosophy that led to a bleak hypothetical outcome.
"You can make the argument that they should trade him now," Passan said."I'm not going to because I think the Pirates, with some of the players that they have coming up, would have a chance to win if they were to go out and actually bring in some offensive players and sign some free agents. But the truth is, there are teams already that are going to ask about Paul Skenes at the trade deadline this year. And I don't anticipate that he's going to be moved, but there's a real argument to be made that the best thing for the Pittsburgh Pirates would be to move Paul Skenes while he has his most value."
A couple things that we need to make incredibly clear from the video/pull quote:
Jeff Passan says that Skenes has no incentive to sign long term with the Pirates
Jeff Passan says the Pirates do not have a proven history to improve the Pirates
Jeff Passan says the Pirates will be asked about trading Skenes, and that he has his most value.
Nowhere does Jeff Passan say Paul Skenes will be traded. Nowhere does Jeff Passan Paul Skenes say wants to be traded. Nowhere does Jeff Passan say Paul Skenes is on the trading block or that the Pirates are trying to trade Paul Skenes. And yet. Here’s a podcast about trading Paul Skenes, here’s a video about trading Skenes calling out Passan in the title, here’s an article about the “blockbuster Skenes trade,” and none of this includes what’s on TikTok or Instagram with the same message. All of which is in direct conflict with the immediate follow up reporting, which emphatically said that Paul Skenes will not be traded this season. Additionally, the current Pirates plan is still to build around him, not with assets from him.
Update May 22, literally like one hour after I pressed publish: Ben Cherington, bad GM of the Pittsburgh Pirates, says in regards to trading Skenes “No, it’s not part of the conversation at all.” Cool!
And yet. We’re still seeing content created about the “Paul Skenes trade speculation,” that doesn’t exist at any real level by those who would be speculating! “But it’s just some content aggregator!” No, it’s not! Some of the biggest “capital J” journalists are talking about this topic under the pretense that it’s breaking news or an ongoing story!
Kayla Scanlon has one of the best analysis of the “attention economy” out there, and while she’s framing her breakdown within finance, the model spreads across multiple subject areas. Sports aren’t special. Where sports is slightly different from other industries is that it has existed for years with an implicit trust that even if a reporter worked for ESPN, the content they produced was not influenced by the fact that ESPN held the rights for the game related to the content. And thus, this content was “reporting,” and treated with the seriousness of news. Other industries (like finance) have regulations that try4 and make sure people are aware that if given the chance, those vested in successful outcomes will in fact lie very loudly and to anyone who will listen!
ESPN sets the direction for every other media content farm in the sports space, as we’ve seen with this Paul Skenes example. ESPN has decided they want to have singular voices amplifying commentary, and the market is responding well. And so, it doesn’t matter if a story is true or not5 if it drives clicks via content aggregation or on site engagement, it will be promoted and pushed.
None of this is “new” per say. The old gated internet used to do this all the time, but with articles that well managed search engines could weed out in favor of actual credible reporting. But today’s hyper-scaled content creation ecosystem means that it’s almost impossible to stop a narrative once it rolls, and it’s in the best interest of ESPN to have their highly paid faces in as many places as possible. Call it flywheel, call it manipulation, it doesn’t really matter. The output is going to be less trust and reliability with fans consuming content that comes from the biggest sports content creator. I’m sure that will end well.
Even this year, this team that has a historical limp offense is not even the worst team in baseball, and they may not even end up with a top three draft pick because there are so many other teams who are somehow worse! Don’t worry, everything’s fine here!
The Gerrit Cole trade was a Bad Trade that can be somewhat exempt in that they should’ve traded for real prospects instead of trying to extend the competition window. I’m referring more to the offloading of Andrew McCutchen, who has yielded them current “star” Bryan Reynolds. And somehow an older McCutchen.
Not relevant, but I like to mention that Syracuse communications can produce a non-Eagle talent.
Not gonna touch this beyond “look, I knooooooow.
Just look at the Sophie Cunningham story. It’s still developing, but it certainly appears as if she will have never slept with the Suns CEO, and yet spend the next few years being “the woman who slept with the Suns CEO.”