Less than a week after his shocking trade to the San Francisco Giants, Rafael Devers is playing against his former team, the Boston Red Sox. Naturally, that’s led to a lot of “what went wrong” commentary, which sparked a war of words on X between ESPN’s Jeff Passan and the MLB Scoops account.
Passan shared an article of his on Friday morning, looking into how the relationship between Devers and the Red Sox fell apart. Among the topics discussed were the “falsehoods,” such as a rift between Devers and Boston second baseman Kristian Campbell.
“There are small ones, like Devers being mad at Campbell for volunteering to play first base,” Passan wrote. “He wasn’t mad, multiple sources said.”
Chris Cotillo of Mass Live corroborated that story, adding that it was one of the few details where parties on all sides share a similar view.
“One nugget on here to touch on: As Jeff wrote, people on all sides (who can’t agree on much) all agree that they don’t know where the Devers being mad at Campbell / interfering with his 1B work thing came from,” Cotillo said.
So far, so good. That wouldn’t last.
The MLB Scoops account defended its sources and accused Passan of “playing a game of politics.”
“Joon Lee and us here at MLB Scoops have very credible sources who are tapped into this situation,” the post said. “We will not back down from our stance. We believe that Jeff Passan is playing a game of politics here to swoon Devers over for more insider information. We give the people real news.”
“Jeff Passan is the same reporter who sits on stories (like the Jared Porter story) to gain insider information,” MLB Scoops said in a follow-up post. “It would come to no surprise that this is the game he is playing. We challenge Passan to release the full information to the people.”
Passan had a simple response.
“Delete your account.”
Of course, that was not the end of it.
“We will when you tell us why you congratulated the #Mets on hiring Jared Porter while working on a bombshell piece (that you stole from the beautiful Mina Kimes) that was going to expose him as a sexual deviant and pervert,” MLB Scoops replied. “No more lies Jeffy!”
In December of 2020, the Mets hired Porter as general manager, a deal which Passan discussed on, as it was then known, Twitter. Over a pair of posts, Passan noted that Porter was “immensely respected around baseball and has been seen as a future GM for years” and that “He should be an excellent complement to Sandy Alderson and had the right kind of temperament to thrive in New York and under Steve Cohen.”
A month later, Passan and Mina Kimes wrote an article detailing that “Jared Porter sent explicit, unsolicited texts and images to a female reporter in 2016,” which Porter acknowledged. Porter was subsequently fired.
It’s worth noting that Passan didn’t “congratulate the Mets” on Porter’s hiring. He noted how well Porter was regarded around the league at the time and suggested that he could work well with the existing front office. That’s not exactly congratulating the team on the hire.
Passan defended the timeline. He noted that while the story about Porter was in the works when he was hired by the Mets, the source was not yet ready for it to go public.
“Because unlike you, we actually care about doing things right,” he said. “We knew. The source would not allow us to print it. When she did, we did. That’s how journalism works. Now please, for everyone’s sake, delete your account and stop peddling this garbage, you fetid, sad creature.”
As of now, those were Passan’s final comments — at least public comments — on the matter. The MLB Scoops account has had more to say.