NEWSLETTER
Every once in a while, there’s a report floating around in various corners of the web that immediately strikes me as thin or suspect, and I kinda hope it’ll die on the vine before folks even really pick it up. I don’t love to poo-poo others’ reports, and would rather just not pass along to you reports that I deem unreliable. But I do see it as part of my job to distill, analyze, and vet for you the stuff that is out there.
Sometimes, a suspect report gets so widely circulated – and even gets picked up by major publications – that I am asked about it so many times that I have to say something.
So it is with this: hop around the baseball-related interwebs today, and chances are you’re going to see people talking about how the Cubs offered Kyle Schwarber to the Tigers for young righty Michael Fulmer.
It snags peoples’ ears because it comes on the heels of a report from Peter Gammons that the Cubs asked the Tigers about Fulmer, but I hope you would immediately be very surprised – suspicious, even – that the Cubs front office would be out there dangling Kyle Schwarber right now.
As is always the case with a rumor that strikes you as … odd, you have to trace it all back.
It started with this tweet yesterday:
The @Cubs called the @tigers and offered Kyle Schwarber for Michael Fulmer. Also asked about Daniel Norris. pic.twitter.com/HndLYezCiY
— MLB Roundup (@MLB_Roundup) July 10, 2017
Which is not an account that I know and trust immediately, and I especially don’t after seeing the way they “source” their info – they did it in a follow-on tweet (knowing full well that, without any context in the initial tweet, they could get a lot more shares and traction):
Source: pic.twitter.com/vWs3FLykKu
— MLB Roundup (@MLB_Roundup) July 10, 2017
If you actually listen to the source of the report, it’s coming from Jim Bowden, whose track record in the rumor game has been less than stellar in recent years.
Take all of that together with my initial dubiousness that the way this all would have gone down would be the Cubs calling up the Tigers and saying, “Hey, you want Schwarber for Fulmer?”, and I don’t really put a lot of stock in this one, as described.
I should say explicitly that this is not one of those times when I’ve got some inside info. Sometimes I do. This time, I’m going only on my evaluation of the entire set of circumstances.
Does that mean the Cubs don’t want Fulmer? No. Of course they want Fulmer. A cost-controlled, already-excellent, young starting pitcher? You don’t need me or Peter Gammons to tell you that part is accurate.
Does this mean the Cubs would never consider dealing Kyle Schwarber under any circumstances? No, I’m not saying that either. I don’t think it’s very likely that the Cubs would deal Schwarber right now (and I do think it would require a Fulmer-level return to happen (a swap, by the way, that I can’t see the Tigers doing right now either)). The Cubs won’t rule anything out. I just don’t think they’re out there right now shopping Schwarber.
On these Tigers rumors generally, by the way, I have a very hard time seeing them actually moving Fulmer, given his youth and team control. Daniel Norris, as an early change of scenery guy? Yeah, that I could see. And I could also see the Cubs being very interested in taking him on.
