This past Friday, MLB Network insider Jon Morosi made headlines when he confirmed suspicions that two-way baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani was indeed on a private jet from Anaheim to Toronto to potentially sign a free-agent contract with the Blue Jays. Upon Shark Tank investor and entrepreneur Robert Herjavec stepping out of the aircraft instead, the baseball world was disappointed and directed vitriol in the direction of Morosi for his inaccurate reporting.
Shortly after the fact, Morosi issued an apology to X after affirming that Ohtani’s decision was imminent earlier in the day. In the end, he regrets not adhering to the journalistic standards he learned while reporting for newspapers earlier in his career and vowed to be better going forward.
Morosi made an appearance on 670 The Score with the Parkins & Spiegel Tuesday and re-emphasized his apology, affirming that he had been told by multiple sources that Ohtani was on the plane. The decision for Morosi to go forward and promulgate what he had been told was his own, and it is something that he says he will remain accountable for throughout the rest of his career.
“I’m really grateful that the (MLB) Network has been so supportive,” Morosi said. “They knew I was trying the best I could on a very intense day to do the best reporting that I could and I obviously fell short, and I had a really, really bad day at the worst possible time is where it all fell for me, I think, on Friday.”
Morosi has been back on the air as usual on MLB Network with an understanding that it is his job to be better. Since the incident occurred, he has reviewed his fundamentals and practices to ensure that he is disseminating accurate reports. Reflecting on this process, he knows that there were parts that he can refine from what went wrong last week.
“I think that when you get a shock to your system like that, it’s not fun but it also makes you think a lot about the gratitude you have to be in a wonderful position like I am and the support of some great teammates who reached out – some privately; some publicly – and I had major-league managers calling me and players,” Jon Morosi said. “It’s been a pretty emotional few days, but it’s really underscored honestly how blessed I am to do what I do and it’s probably made me refocus and hopefully get even better in the future.”
There were other reports after Morosi’s blunder that stated that the purported information caused the Los Angeles Dodgers to become fearful and up their offer to Ohtani. The team ultimately landed him on a 10-year, $700 million deal with a reported $680 million deferred after the conclusion of the deal. With this amount of the contract being pushed afterwards, the Dodgers will have more flexibility to improve parts of their roster in accordance with the league’s competitive balance tax.
USA TODAY reporter and columnist Bob Nightengale opined after the fact that reporters are being used and do not seem to mind it, even embracing it at times. He also revealed that many of the stories are leaked by agents, which can be used to cultivate leverage for their clients. Morosi expressed his opinion on the assertion, explaining how the rules of the collective bargaining agreement prevent executives from discussing free-agent players to the media, even off the record, until they are signed by another team.
“As a result, hard, reliable, trustworthy [and] solid information, especially as it relates to free agency, is difficult,” Jon Morosi said. “It’s difficult to get. That’s not any excuse – that is no excuse for us to be inaccurate, but it’s just the reality of the playing field that we deal with.”
The occurrence underscores just how much the reporting impacts fans, and Morosi feels terrible about the inaccuracies he communicated on Friday. Morosi admitted that it was one of the hardest answers for him to give as an insider, but it would have benefited him in this circumstance.
“I was confident that what I had was correct and that’s why I put it out there,” Jon Morosi said, “but obviously it was a reminder that in the age of Twitter especially, there’s no such thing as being too careful.”
