Tag: Jeff Passan

ESPN’s Jeff Passan responds to Shams Charania hiring with Wolf of Wall Street video

Jeff Passan isn’t replacing Woj.

ESPN has a new NBA insider in Shams Charania, who seemed like the obvious replacement for the retired Adrian Wojnarowski.

But there was a report that the network’s baseball columnist and reporter Jeff Passan was in the mix for Woj’s job. Turns out that Passan wasn’t the pick.

So, now what for Passan? He answered it with a couple of posts on X (formerly Twitter), first with the “I’M NOT LEAVING” clip from The Wolf of Wall Street (WARNING: it gets NSFW). Then, he kept it simple: “Baseball’s better anyway.”

That’s it. Baseball fans were very happy with that development:

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ESPN’s Jeff Passan, Athletic’s Shams Charania reportedly top candidates to replace Adrian Wojnarowski

ESPN is looking for a replacement for Adrian Wojnarowski, who announced his shocking retirement recently.

When Adrian Wojnarowski announced his retirement from ESPN nearly two weeks ago, it shocked the sports world because he had cemented himself as the breaker of (mostly) NBA news and was a staple of the sport with his Woj bombs.

Before the shock wore off, fans started speculating about who could replace Wojnarowski with many pointing to Shams Charania as an obvious choice.

ESPN baseball insider Jeff Passan is a top candidate for the job, along with Charania, according to a new report from The Athletic on Saturday. The report cited six sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The report about top candidates to replace Wojnarowski follows news this week that ESPN laid off NBA writer Zach Lowe.

More from The Athletic‘s Andrew Marchand:

Passan, 44, followed the same path as Wojnarowski by first becoming a top insider at Yahoo Sports before moving to ESPN. Passan makes in the neighborhood of $1 million per year, according to sources briefed on his contract. Wojnarowski left $20 million on his deal when he left journalism to become the general manager of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team. Wojnarowski was earning around $7 million per season.

Besides the potential for greater earnings for Passan, ESPN has a long-term relationship with the NBA as it just signed an 11-year extension to be the home of the NBA Finals. Meanwhile, ESPN’s marriage to baseball is in a tenuous stage. It has an opt-out in its current contract, which is for $540 million per season, that it is expected to use or threaten to use by the end of next season. While ESPN could stay in business with MLB, it is not guaranteed. ESPN has an interest in MLB’s local rights, which could be where the two sides come together.

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Jeff Passan makes a pitch for Paul Skenes to start MLB All-Star Game

Jeff Passan of ESPN has an idea on how to help grow the game.

[autotag]Jeff Passan[/autotag] of ESPN has an idea on how to help “grow the game” as Rob Manfred always likes to talk about. His idea? Make [autotag]Paul Skenes[/autotag] the starter of the All-Star Game.

The No. 1 pick of the 2023 MLB Draft was called up to the [autotag]Pittsburgh Pirates[/autotag] to make his major league debut on June 11th against the Chicago Cubs. So far, that first game has been his roughest start. Since that game, Skenes is 5-0 with a 1.59 ERA.

His overall stats are 5-0 with a 2.12 ERA in 59.1 innings. Skenes has not pitched enough innings to qualify for the best ERA in the league, but if he had, he would have the lowest ERA in the MLB. Remember, he is just a rookie. He has been breaking records already in only the second month of his career.

He has 78 strikeouts and 12 walks this year and after last night’s win over the Mets, Skenes became the only pitcher in MLB history to strike out 70+ hitters through his first nine career starts while allowing less than 14 runs.

Passan makes a great point, if you want people to watch this All-Star Game, start Skenes against Gunnar Henderson, Aaron Judge, and Juan Soto in the first inning. It would be electric.

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ESPN baseball reporter Jeff Passan offered encouraging update after suffering a scary back injury

He plans to break news with a broken back.

Along with being one of the top news breakers in MLB media, ESPN baseball reporter Jeff Passan has helped grow the game to a wider audience with his personality on social media.

But for the past few days, Passan had been noticeably quiet during a weekend of MLB action. Now, we know why.

The ESPN reporter took to Twitter on Monday afternoon to share that he had suffered a broken back while cleaning up storm debris around his home in Kansas City. According to Passan, a large tree limb fell on him, and he suffered a vertebra fracture. Thankfully, Passan expects to make a recovery and still has full use of his arms and legs.

Still, that was terrifying news. Passan reassured fans that he would get better and told sources that he’d still be able to report about the upcoming MLB trade deadline. I don’t know how he managed to joke about the incident, but it was certainly encouraging to see him make light of what has to be a tough situation.

Fans and colleagues also wished Passan a speedy recovery.

Q&A: Jeff Passan on the 2022 MLB Winter Meetings, baseball in Las Vegas and the worst bet he ever made

What’s the Over/Under on free agent signings this week? Passan has the answer and more.

When it comes to giving the people what they crave, few in the sports industry deliver to the level of ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

From early beat-reporting days at Fresno State to writing for The Kansas City Star and Yahoo to now covering all things Major League Baseball, Passan has worked his way into national status and become one of the most valuable and respected insiders in the industry.

Ahead of next week’s highly anticipated MLB Winter Meetings, Passan was generous enough to spend some time with For The Win. He dives into his role, hints at what to expect ahead of the upcoming event and reminisces on some of his wildest experiences while covering the four-day event.

(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

ESPN’s Jeff Passan had a great response after regaining access to his hacked Twitter account

Well played, Jeff.

It turned out that MLB players weren’t the only ones experiencing a lockout on Thursday. One of baseball’s top newsbreakers, ESPN MLB reporter Jeff Passan, was right there with them.

As the players union and MLB owners continued negotiations into Thursday, Passan tweeted that there was an agreement on the international draft — a major roadblock that led to Wednesday’s additional canceled games. It was encouraging news, and plenty of MLB fans were watching Passan’s Twitter feed for additional updates.

Then, something unusual happened.

Passan’s Twitter account shifted from being the page of an ESPN baseball insider with 800,000-plus followers to being a page promoting weird skull NFTs. Passan had been hacked at the worst possible time. His name was changed to Jeff.eth.

Not ideal!

But order was eventually restored two hours later. And, of course, Passan had a great way of signaling his return to Twitter. He changed his header photo as a nod to Michael Jordan’s 1995 press release about his return to the NBA.

Passan’s back. And now that we know he didn’t lose his Twitter account for good, we can enjoy all the jokes from baseball fans.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan went on ‘First Take’ and perfectly blasted Stephen A. Smith over Shohei Ohtani take

Well said, Jeff Passan.

On Monday, Stephen A. Smith went on ESPN’s dreadful morning show “First Take” and made very xenophobic comments about Shohei Ohtani and how the Angels star’s need for an interpreter doesn’t help the game of baseball.

It was a very dumb and offensive take that was rightfully crushed by baseball fans who love watching Ohtani do incredible things on the baseball field.

Smith later Monday offered a few apologies that weren’t great and then started Tuesday’s show with another apology.

The show later had on ESPN baseball insider Jeff Passan to talk about Smith’s comments and he perfectly blasted Smith over his awful take on Ohtani:

Here was Smith’s apology from Tuesday:

Fans rightfully applauded Passan for what he said on the show:

ESPN’s Jeff Passan: Some MLB owners would prefer to see the 2020 season canceled

“They’re gonna lose too much money.”

It’s been over two months since the global coronavirus pandemic brought U.S. professional sports to a complete standstill. And while the major U.S. pro leagues have yet to return to action, framework for season restarts are being worked out in the NBA and NHL.

Major League Baseball — a sport that generally rules the summer months — has been unable to overcome financial disagreements between the owners and the players union. Thus far, the MLBPA is only willing to return with guaranteed prorated salaries for a shortened season.

The owners, though, wanted the players to take tiered pay reductions that would see the game’s highest-paid, most marketable players taking nearly 80 percent pay cuts.

Well, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the proposal can be blamed on the notion that some MLB owners don’t want a 2020 season played at all because a closed-door season will cost them too much money.

Passan said on The Rich Eisen Show:

“It’s gonna come down to the owners. I believe when the players say, ‘We want to play.’ I do actually believe that. I think there are some owners who don’t. … I think there are some owners who worry that playing is going to cost them too much. They’re gonna lose too much money. And that they would rather just punt the 2020 season. That’s a scary thing to hear.”

As disappointing as that is, the proposal from the owners did increasingly suggest that they would rather see the MLB season canceled, deflect blame onto the player and hope to make up for it when fans are allowed back.

And doing so would be completely shortsighted as it ignores the lasting damage a canceled season would inflict on the game of baseball — a sport with already-dwindling popularity.

But we should probably prepare for that scenario unless one side caves.

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