Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 278: Chris Cotillo on Breaking Trades Before Finishing High School

Episode Date: September 3, 2013

Ben and Sam talk to MLBDailyDish.com writer Chris Cotillo about how he became a baseball newsbreaker before the age of 18.

Good morning and welcome to episode 278 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. I am Ben Lindberg, joined as always by Sam Miller. We hope you had a nice long weekend and survived your Monday without us. Our guest today is Chris Cotillo from MLBDailyDish.com, which is part of the SB Nation network. which is part of the SB Nation network. And I've been looking forward to talking to Chris for a while because I think he has a very interesting and impressive story. And I told Sam that we would either have to have him on the podcast or just make a movie about him, possibly.

So we'll start with the podcast and we'll talk about the movie off air. So, Chris, you were the first to report the Indians' interest in Jason Kubel last week. They ended up acquiring him, of course. And before that, you had reported a pretty steady stream, it seems like, of rumors and transactions throughout the summer. You are also a high school student. That's right. this summer. You are also a high school student. So take us through how and when you got started as a writer and as a reporter and how you ended up where you are. It's been an interesting journey. I mean, a couple of years ago, I started an anonymous

Twitter account with the handle at Trade Deadliner. And it started as just a hobby of me reporting and parroting what all the other reporters were saying. So it was just a constant stream of baseball news and rumors and just on Twitter without any kind of writing, like long form attached to it. So after a while, I noticed, you know, all these guys like Rosenthal, Heyman, Olney. So after a while, I noticed all these guys like Rosenthal, Heyman, Olney. I looked up to them and thought they have these great contact lists and they can report anything before anyone else. But with social media and all the technology that I have available to me right now, I can get those stories and I can try to start.

And, I mean, it's not going to hurt to try. So after a while, I've tried establishing different contacts. And throughout the game, I've had people who've been very generous to me with helping me out. And the hobby's kind of turned into what I expect to be a career, which has been really, really great for me. So what kind of following did you get for your original Twitter account then when you were just kind of repeating other people's stuff? It was a pretty good following. I mean, I started it out kind of as I just expected myself to be the only one looking at it and kind of a tracker for myself.

Because growing up when I was little, I always expected it to be Excel. I always had Excel spreadsheets for every move that went on. And even when I was, I i mean i remember being six years old and sitting in my room and i'd print off the papers with team logos on it and post them behind me on the wall and do mock press conferences with us with i mean my stuffed animals at that point so and then so it's it became kind of a couple thousand followers with that and then i attached my name to it and changed the handle once i became associated with MLB Daily Dish and we've kind of started building a brand around away from I mean SB Nation is obviously known for the fan blogging kind of thing but my

goal is to try to bring the news and kind of original reporting to that and with what I do with MLB Daily Dish. So yeah so there have been people who've started these sort of anonymous accounts and passed themselves off as insiders and kind of, I don't know, made stuff up or just kind of rephrased things that other people said and somehow gotten a pretty good following doing that without any, you know, genuine context or any actual information. So how do you go, I mean, without specifics or giving away anything, how do you go from being a complete outsider who's just reading other people's reports

and repeating them to developing your own network of sources and being able to get that information first? network of sources and being able to get that information first. I mean, I still, I deal with that kind of criticism because people still associate me with the accounts, like whatever it was, MLB Inside News that would make up stuff a couple years ago and pass off as insiders. And people see me and my profile picture and my age and think there's no way this kid has any kind of inside information. I mean I've been able to use Twitter and Facebook and you know just looking up phone numbers and emails and I make a lot of calls and I make a lot of attempts at information and it's not like I can pick up my phone and call Cashman or Charrington or any of these guys and

say what's going on with this move so I have to try to be creative with different things that i do and so i mean it's not always the people you would think would be the sources within the game who sometimes have the best information so i've been able to kind of utilize those through technology and social media and then also some connections that i've made at different events throughout boston and i'll be at the winter meetings this december which will be a really cool experience and hopefully a big networking one for me so so so I mean we I know you don't want to give away secrets and we don't want you to give away secrets and and and so I'm gonna I'm gonna sort of ask this and I don't know if there's anything you can you can say but I mean like I it's really hard to get information out of people I mean it's hard to get people to return your calls it's it's really hard to get information out of people. I mean, it's hard to get people to return your calls. It's, it's always hard to get people to return your calls. And particularly if,

if you're not, you know, if you're not credentialed, if you're not, uh, you know, a known name and all these sorts of things, is there, can you describe any like particular instance where you used either social media or just any kind of creative means of of getting somebody to like tell you something because i genuinely i mean ben and i ben i can tell you right now ben is giddy doing this conversation because for the last like two months he is just every couple days he sends me a note like how does he get this like how how is he breaking news um like i genuinely don't know how even like the established guys do it and it's amazing what they do so i'm in my mind i'm imagining like how you're doing it and i'm completely coming up blank like my brain just will not even create a mental image yeah it's it's I mean, I try to avoid telling people how old I am

because then they think I'm some blogger who doesn't know anything because people are biased about age and maturity and that kind of thing. So it's kind of, you know, I use, without getting too specific, I mean, Twitter is where I started, and important people would follow that account when it was anonymous news and that gives you the ability to direct message them through twitter if they follow you can direct message them obviously so that's how i've really gotten to talk to a lot of people and then i mean i think word of mouth travels throughout the game like

this is someone who actually has connections and he might be able to help you out and you find with sources that two-way information sharing is the most important thing so i mean if i'm talking to an agent i'm not going to expect that he's just going to feed me this information for free i mean everybody's going to want something out of everybody all the time so i've learned that and trying to talk to different people you know trying to almost be like a matchmaker, try to be a matchmaker a little bit between player and team or agent and team, and say, you know, this team has a need, you're a free agent who could fill that need, do you ever consider going to them?

And, you know, if you're open and just have conversations with these people, then they're willing to give you information in the long run. So do you remember what the first kind first reported story that you had was? What's the first time that you used a source to get something first? It was Russ Kanzler being claimed off waivers by the Orioles over the winter. That one went on the fridge immediately. But, you know, I mean, it's obviously I'm not going to start by breaking massive stories. So you have to kind of work your way up. And then people see that there's credibility there.

And so it doesn't matter if you're right on a AA signing or Canoe signing this winter. You're right, regardless of what it is. And people notice that and are willing to give you information based on, you know, what they assume your contact list looks like. So would you say that Kubel was the biggest thing you've had so far? It was definitely up there. I mean, I had Giovanni Gallardo's no trade list earlier in the summer, Giovanni Gallardo's no trade list earlier in the summer which was pretty good I thought and um there's been a couple others um I had part of the return in the Nolasco deal which is which was um I was proud of myself to get that one because you know as soon as everybody says you know Nolasco is going to the Dodgers you know and there's three pitching prospects going back or whatever it was

to the Dodgers, you know, and there's three pitching prospects going back or whatever it was, you know, everybody, Heyman, Rosenthal, only all these guys are all going after that bit of information. So it's this mad rush for about five minutes where, and if you, if you're the, if you're the first to get it, that's, it's a good feeling. So what, what has the response been, if any, from those big name guys in the industry? I saw that Rosenthal tweeted the other day and gave you credit for being the first on the Kubel trade, which has to feel pretty good for you. It does, yeah. So have you found that they are,

are they very willing to give you credit where it's due? Have you had to kind of push it all to get credit for the things that you've reported first? Or have you found that they're very accepting of a new person kind of coming into the fraternity? It depends on the situation. Before, when it was at first with stuff like the Kanzler deal or whatever, I had to email different beat writers or teams and say, actually, I saw your report, and I'd like to just respectfully say that I had this before you. And then they would usually tweet Chris Cotillo had it first, and that would provide a link,

which would drive up my following when people see that. And so eventually, when people follow me, Heyman has been following me for a while, and Ken Rosenthal just followed me today, which was a big accomplishment because he and John Heyman are the two who I think are the best at what they do in the insider kind of thing nationally. So when they follow, they can see my work and they're very quick to give credit.

Everybody's been great about that. How stressful is it for you after you post something waiting to see whether it either comes true or passes the sort of time period it needs to to not be debunked? Are you always, especially given how much kind of BS is out there in terms of not just being reported but being passed to reporters for, you know, whatever reason. How nervous are you that you're going to break the Kano story, you know, in in late November, and it's going to turn out to be wrong? You know what I mean? I mean, it depends on the source. As I said, I've gotten creative with stuff. So there's

sometimes where I get a, hey think i heard this which at that point i have to be careful with my wording so i can have some backup if it goes wrong but if it's someone who i know is directly in the know then i i feel pretty safe about it and at first i remember the kansler thing was my first scoop you know i just i remember getting the text from the source tweeting it and then just pacing around the house waiting for someone out of Baltimore to confirm it. It's nerve-wracking because one wrong thing and you... People always are eager to jump on me because there's some people out there who always want to prove you wrong. Especially when you're 17 and not expected to do this kind of thing people are even more willing to

you know try to ruin you kind of so it's it's nerve-wracking but it's gotten less nerve-wracking based on who the source is and as time has passed you know knowing that my information is coming from good places have you have you have you gotten any information passed along to you that you uh suspected was not true, that was for some reason or another somebody had an interest in getting that information out there but that you didn't believe was true, or is that stuff mainly going to, I don't know, Heyman or Rosenthal or whoever at this point? I mean, you can tell when you get a text from an agent or a player who has been released by a double-A team with a certain low batting average that says he has interest from six teams.

We're working on making a decision. You kind of know based on just facts that some of that stuff is just to drive up interest and hopefully drive up price tag when I start speaking to people about major league free agents. So what do you do? What do you do in that case? I kind of report it, but you have to be extremely careful about the wording. Because you have to say, I try to use things like hearing whispers that instead of a source is telling me. Because whispers, I mean, it's kind of an ambiguous definition. telling me because whispers, I mean, it's kind of an ambiguous definition with that. I mean, I don't want to dwell on your age too much because I feel like, you know, I feel like the work...

People do it all the time. It's fine. This is coming, by the way, from our 19 and a half year old editor-in-chief. Right. No, I know. Yeah, you make me feel ancient. So, I know. you make your picture your twitter avatar which you did but um but so how does this work from a lifestyle perspective is what i wonder because you know this is a around the clock thing for

for the big guys in the industry i mean they're they're up in the middle of the night tweeting stuff and texting people and how do you how does that work with you know the the obligations of a high school student? I mean, it's tough and it's been tough. I mean, I started school last Wednesday, so it's going to be an interesting winter. It's senior year, though, so it's not supposed to be too hard. That's what they tell me. But I mean, it's going to be a stressful few months applying to colleges and trying to do all the writing stuff and all the schoolwork and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life,

which, I mean, people kind of my following expect that I'm going to be on this all the time. But I've had other reporters and people tell me, you know, this is supposed to be the time of your life. You've got to enjoy it. And so I'm trying to do that too. But if I'm in the middle of class and I get a text about an important thing, the teachers will always, you know, you know there's no phones in class, right? You know I have to beat Rosenthal at this one, right?

It's an interesting kind of balance, but I'm trying to get to where I can try to do it all. And that means about four hours of sleep per night. And what do your friends think about this? I mean, they must be reading your work and impressed by this sort of thing, I would think. Yeah, I mean, it's good because, I mean, a lot of kids can shine on the athletic field in school and see that all. And everybody is in the stands cheering them on and so I've kind of always been the kid that was you know cut from baseball teams as I grew up and wasn't the most athletically talented so to find my kind of my calling this

early when you know all the kids who beat me at all these sports can see it it kind of feels good sometimes and everybody's recognized it and the funny thing is teachers actually are okay with the phone thing in class because they know that i'm not you know texting someone across the room they know that i'm trying to advance my career breaking news yeah are you serious you're serious like your teachers actually let you do this from class like they give you leeway to do this from class yeah i mean i just started this year so it's all about trying to feel at a level which teachers will be most difficult about it wow when i'm sitting in journalism or newspaper production class i'm thinking you know what this

this is going to be fine she's going to understand but if i'm sitting in you know different classes with teachers who you just know are not baseball fans and you know they're very focused on their subjects it's going to be different but i mean i've gotten up from classes i've raised my hand then you know they think i have a question i say what's up chris can i go to the library cody epley just signed with the twins actually i mean that's a true story and my teacher was really cool with that one he actually follows me on twitter and keeps up with my work and so said, yeah, you know what, go for it. Got to go down and write it. It's been interesting.

Are you planning on going to the winter meetings? Yes, I am. We booked the flights last week, but I'm still going to work on getting it. I haven't obviously gotten the media credential for that yet, which is something I'm going to definitely still gonna work on getting i haven't obviously gotten the media credential for that yet which is something i'm gonna definitely have to work on and um we're kind of making a family vacation out of it so because it's at disney so we'll keep my little sister and parents occupied while i go network in the two hotels for the whole week doesn't anybody do school anymore don't you know i mean i do but it's senior year so you gotta kind of lay back a little bit what about your sister what it's seventh it's seventh grade i mean it's middle

school it doesn't really matter no it's it's the school work and writing work balance is something that's definitely tough and i think it will be in college but i'm gonna plan on being a journalism major wherever i go and so yeah i don't want to discourage you from doing from doing your homework but i mean the the stuff that you're doing now is is gonna look better on a resume than than getting an a instead of an a minus don't don't if i don't don't don. Don't major in journalism. Really? Yeah, really. I mean, you don't learn anything with a journalism major that you don't learn in the first six weeks of doing it.

And you've been doing it more than six weeks. You will learn nothing. The only thing you need to go to a journalism major for is to learn journalism law. And you can just get a good book for that. So go major in like poli-sci or business or stats or something better. Don't do it. You're ahead of it. You should be teaching. I'm not just flattering you because you're a guest.

You should genuinely actually be teaching a course, not going to it. Not at all. The scary thing for me is I'm trying to learn this all on the fly. With no journalism training before taking it second half of last year, I'm trying to break all these stories and learn how anonymous sources work. And I wrote kind of a controversial article about aces and the biogenesis tie with all that stuff. And, you know, I am kind of going into a blind in terms of the legal issues you could possibly have and all the ethics and all that kind of stuff so i i definitely need a base of where i can really you know learn all the tricks of the trade and it's good because i get to apply it practically all the time too what was the response to the aces piece it was i mean difficult because i had to quote like 10

anonymous agents who you know i'm willing to i'm willing to talk about aces, but you just can't attach my name to it. So there's going to be doubt based on that. Or, I mean, obviously, and you know, it's tough cause I don't want to tick off anyone in the industry now. So, I mean, I don't know if aces necessarily read that article or not, but you know, if they did, then they, you know, I don't know how willing they'll be to give me information in the future. So it's a fine line between trying to figure out how to advance that one day of page views

on the site or advance long-term relationships in the career. And you have been credentialed for some things recently, it looks like. I saw you tweeted something from a press box somewhere yeah it's the Red Sox well half an hour from Boston so they're extremely tough about who they give press credentials to they don't let standalone websites unless you're a baseball writers Association so I was able to cover a game in Baltimore, and I've been able to cover events like the Sabre seminar, which you spoke at a couple weeks ago.

And so just those kind of events have been good. It's just it's tough in a huge media market here where they have to be selective of who they let into the press box. But hopefully in the next couple of years, I'll have an internship with a credentialed outlet, and I'll be able to get in the clubhouse and the locker room and that kind of thing. So is that kind of the way that you can take the next step and acquire more sources? Because I mean, the guys that we've been talking about are people who kind of started out on a local beat, usually like Heyman and Olney and spent a couple of decades covering a team day in and day out and building up sources that way and then kind of went national.

So I guess you have kind of gone national first, and now you'll try to... Yeah, I mean, it's tough to determine where I go from here. I mean, I really enjoy covering everything because I'm kind of a control freak. So I don't like, I wouldn't like being, you know, tied down to one team and having this context list where I could, you know, I feel like some of the guys who are really good beat reporters definitely

have contacts where they could get stories about other teams. They just elect not to. And I feel like I would want to cover everything. So that's what I'm doing for mb daily dish and we keep trying to grow that brand and i mean when my uh boss and kind of mentor justin bop brought me on a few months ago and when he he was telling me that when he first started the site we were at or he was at about 3 000 page views a. And over the summer, consistently, we hit over 80,000. And then a couple of days, over 100,000, which speaks to the work that me and June Lee and Justin are all doing. It's been really cool to see that site grow and try to establish SB Nation as not just a fan blogging site anymore and more of a newsy kind of basic or normal journalism kind of thing.

So you mentioned giving your six-year-old press conferences. How early on did you pinpoint this as the career path? I mean, was it you wanted to do something in baseball and then gradually it came to be this, or was it kind of always this? I always wanted to grow up to be theo epstein that was my goal and when i was little and you are so young i didn't know who theo epstein was until i was like 26 yeah well i mean yeah that was when i was six seven it's it's all about, I mean, I grew up in, I think, one of the golden ages of baseball any city has ever seen. So, I mean, my childhood memories of watching baseball, my first game was Derek Lowe's no-hitter at Fenway. And then the next year you have the whole Cowboy Up 2003 Red Sox-Yankees-ALCS thing.

And then by the time I'm nine, I'm watching the first World Series the curse reversed 04 down beating the Yankees and then another World Series by 07 so I mean I've seen in before I turned 15 in Boston I saw two World Series championships three Super Bowls an NBA championship and a Stanley Cup and so at that point you you fall in love with the idea of sports and the passion behind it. And there's nothing more exciting than the playoffs. And you have that every year in every sport here. And so I definitely wanted to do something within sports. And then I was always told, you know, that I was a strong writer. And so being able to kind of pair those two things together kind of developed first into the hobby and now hopefully into the career. So are you interested in kind of injecting your opinion into reports as well

and kind of becoming a hybrid columnist reporter, or are you kind of more interested in straight news? It's tricky because there's a line between I want to reveal personal voice and show some personality in work, but if you reveal opinion, then you can you can't always you know not everybody is going to be happy with your work and that could ruin connections and stuff so i mean and i see that you'll see and i mean i tweeted something like ryan braun got what he deserved in the suspension and back when he was suspended he got what he deserved and maybe mlb should have even been hars suspended he got what he deserved and maybe um mlb should have even been harsher he got what he deserved he was a liar i tweeted something like that

and i immediately noticed my following count go down so i checked i checked on the unfollower app who unfollowed and it was a couple of players who have been in steroid trouble in the past you know so it's it's tough because i and they have served as sources on their signings before so you know it's tough because i don't want to offend anyone but so i think the straight news thing is the safest place for me to go right now uh do you have a distinctive look do you have a bow tie or do you have no i have nothing like that so far no i'm still working on it okay you need to work on that maybe a laid-back kind of hooded sweatshirt kind of thing would be good. Um,

okay. So you've, I think you've made everyone who's listening to this miserable. Probably. Um, we, we get the, the,

how do you work in baseball question all the time, usually from people older than you. so what would, what would your response be to that then after kind of an exciting couple of years where you've really, you've become part of the industry after being an outsider? How would you advise people younger than you or older than you to go about it? Is there one key? I don't know if there's a certain key i mean just utilize social media as much as possible i mean when there's i mean 50 years ago the type it's amazing how journalism is involved has evolved i mean even in the couple years that

i've been kind of looking at it and being a part of it so i can't even imagine what over the last few decades it's been like. But now everybody has a voice. And so I think that's important for everybody to know. Everybody has a voice where they can say what they want. They can say their opinions. They can talk to, you can talk to your favorite player if they have a Twitter account.

You know, it's amazing what social media has done. So getting into baseball, you can establish connections easily through social media and i mean if you just if you love the game enough then there'll be a place for you i think all right uh sam you have anything else uh no okay then i guess we're done uh this was great it is kind of an incredible story uh after hearing the details i am i'm even more impressed than I was before. Thanks. You can read Chris's work at mlbdailydish.com. You can follow him at Chris Cotillo, which is C-H-R-I-S-C-O-T-I-L-L-O.

Keep up the great work, I guess. All right. Thanks, man. This is the first of what I'm sure will be many, many interviews in your future. And I think it went perfectly fine. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right. So that's our first show of the week. We do need some emails for our Wednesday email show for tomorrow. So send us some at podcast at baseball prospectus dot com and we will be back.