Have you ever seen an entire industry go through an existential crisis? That was the baseball media around and during the MLB Winter Meetings.
It is important to note that the baseball media faces the same obstacles and challenges as the rest of the media everywhere. We all work for Google, from the most established journalist with Pulitzers coming out of our ears to a barely functional alcoholic like me. While it has always been important to be “first,” it is now of paramount importance, which means much must be sacrificed in the effort to be so. Even if you’re just a reader, you’re familiar enough with keywords and SEO and all the other things that journalists over a certain age didn’t originally sign up for. That’s the way the world is now, and in every sector everyone has to adapt to the tides, but that doesn’t mean it’s seamless.
All of this was put into a particularly boiling cauldron with the biggest free agent in baseball history, who ended up signing the biggest contract in baseball history as we all followed “As Shohei Turns.” Or didn’t turn, given the secrecy surrounding the courtship of Shohei Ohtani. People wanted The Bachelor, they got The Hunt For Red October. But just tweeting or writing, “No one says nothing” isn’t going to please the bosses, so there were definitely a few who went for the downs and ended up looking like idiots.
MLB beat writers went off the rails
It started with Buster Olney’s meltdown that Ohtani wasn’t doing his job for him, which he ended up doing without Olney, because he could and did his own signing easily. Then there was a Friday spent following a Big Ol’ Jet Airliner that took every baseball fan too far away to buy Ohtani flying to Toronto to do… well, no one knew for sure because players don’t fly in to sign contracts and they can have medical tests done anywhere, or fans loudly declared that this was all a big nothing. Which is what it ended up being. Sure, that’s something if Jon Morosi has to retireoffer you a full apology.
It ended today with Bob Nightengale in USA Today taking responsibility for his own part in all this, while calling out the entire industry for being the tool of agents everywhere. Certainly, the growing influence of agents has inflected many parts of all sports, and especially in this one where they can tell reporters anything, but teams can’t. And now that every team has become so cautious about what they give to the press and public – with entire departments whose sole purpose is to control what message gets into the bloodstream – it’s easy to see how reporters have become addicted to sniffing out the ether. soaked cloth that officers continually provide them with.
At least Adam Schefter is clear about what he is. The baseball media isn’t quite ready to do the same, though Nightengale is certainly sounding the clarion call.
Frankly, the baseball media has been at war with itself for a while now, starting with the analytics revolution where an entire generation of thinkers from different places drew fans to a new way of watching and analyzing the game, while those who grew up with It was packed with GMs in hotel lobbies clinging to the old ways that were proven wrong. It’s not really a surprise that the front offices, increasingly staffed by people from the Prospectus and Fangraphs world, have something of a frosty relationship with the media who treated them like interlopers and frauds for questioning the way the game was covered pulled. and discussed.
Now, baseball media has to deal with the fact that players can walk around it to interact with fans, and often do. Every player has an Insta or Twitter or Tik Tok. Shaq said many years ago, “We are all media now.” Ohtani told the world that he himself signed with the Dodgers yesterday. That’s pretty much how it goes now.
MLB media has been off their game for a while now
But it just doesn’t happen at all Unpleasant the media. We only have to go back to last winter, when everyone breathlessly proclaimed Carlos Correa Reus and Met before the physical tests failed, and also “Arson Judge” Reus. Everyone looked terrible. The Mets and Giants looked like they were trying to get out of something, while still getting the nod by at least looking like they wanted to spend big. Correa looked like he was using a garbage can for a leg. Reporters looked like dupes. But they couldn’t wait for medical drugs to be delivered, could they? The SEO overlords wouldn’t have it (and note that the Dodgers haven’t said anything yet).
Certainly, media members have become pawns. Agents use them to drive up the price of their free agents and increasingly trade opportunities as they become conduits for more and more agents. You can see this spiraling out of control in European football over the summer, where agents are even more in charge than here.
Where does traditional baseball media fit now? Players are so heavily coached and monitored by PR staff that post-match quotes are rarely worthwhile. The analysis is now handled by so many different outlets with different methods to accommodate each type of fan. The role of ‘insider’, as we have seen, is really just a tool of agents. Local reporters are chained to access they can’t live without, but don’t dare challenge with anything that could upset the team. And even if they do the job the way it was done, like for example Orlando Arcia mocking Bryce Harper after Game 2 in the NLDS – which gave that series a whole new touch that fans loved and is one of the specialties of reporters – the players of Atlanta and the organization couldn’t stop caring about it, and you can make sure everyone’s access next season will be different and monitored.
It’s a different world. No one knows where they belong now, and apparently the only thing left to do is whine about them until we all know what’s next.
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