The latest bad aggregation saw Ben Verlander take Ethan Hullihen's Rowdy Tellez table without credit. The latest bad aggregation saw Ben Verlander take Ethan Hullihen’s Rowdy Tellez table without credit.
MLBTwitterBy Andrew Bucholtz on

We’re back again to examine more bad aggregation. This week’s column will cover aggregation missteps (poor/no sourcing, misrepresentation, and more) from Sept. 20-26.

4. ML Football drops just a “via Sports Business Journal” for Atlanta Super Bowl LXII report

On Thursday, Sports Business Journal‘s Ben Fischer broke major news, writing that sources told him “NFL leaders intend to award Super Bowl LXII in 2028 to Atlanta when owners meet next month in that city.” Here’s how Fischer and his employer tweeted that:

And here’s how MLFootball came along 15 minutes after SBJ tweeted the story, adding just a “via Sports Business Journal” with no publication account tag, no tag for Fischer, and no link to the story (but tagging 10 unrelated media people and fans in the photo):

Fischer’s story comes with a lot of important context that you’d miss if you only went off this tweet, including that the full NFL ownership group still has to approve this. And the biggest problem here is that anyone looking for that extra context would have to Google it rather than go through an account tag or an easy link to the story. At least MLFootball provided some indication of where this came from, though, unlike some of what we’ll get to below.

Rating: **

3. “Dov Kleiman” uses Josh Allen quote without sourcing, adds “I wonder what changed”

After the Buffalo Bills’ 47-10 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars Monday night, Bills quarterback Josh Allen addressed the media in a postgame press conference. There, he talked about the Bills’ offensive weapons; his four touchdown passes that each went to different targets, and two additional players adding rushing touchdowns. Here’s video of those remarks:

The video illustrates some important context beyond just the included quote, of how Allen sees this as “dividends of what we’ve worked on through the entire offseason.” But yes, the “don’t care about stats” quote is interesting, and some (including the @uSTADIUM account above) interpreted it as a potential shot at former Bills’ top receiver Stefon Diggs, who was traded to the Houston Texans during the NFL Draft in April.

But it’s one thing to put out that speculation in a post where the video is immediately available so people can watch it and make up their own minds on what Allen meant. It would be another, less good, thing to put that out with a link to the quote or the source. And it gets to real bad aggregation when the quote is included with no indication of who it was said to or when it was said, as the “Dov Kleiman” account did:

For the record, Allen told reporters (including ESPN.com’s Alaina Getzenberg) Wednesday he didn’t intend that as a shot at Diggs, saying “I’m not trying to tear down anybody” and “I’ve loved everybody that I’ve played with, and you don’t have to tear other people down to build each other up.” Analysts can certainly agree or disagree with him on if the initial remark was a shot at Diggs.

But that’s where the analyst’s own credibility comes in, and where the mysterious current ownership of the “Dov Kleiman” account again matters. This is a strong opinion on Allen’s remarks, one that got widely spread, and it’s unclear whose opinion it is. And that gets made worse still when the one sentence here is presented out of context, with no source for the quote or link where people can view the context.

Rating: ***

2. Bleacher Report uses Rickey Henderson quote without sourcing

Back in the very early days of Bleacher Report, lack of proper sourcing was one of the repeated criticisms of the site. Many things have changed since then, with B/R overall largely going away from fan-produced content, and with their on-website content now much more conventional. But proper citation continues to sometimes be an issue for the TNT Sports-owned site’s social media accounts, with the latest example of that coming from the main B/R feed sharing a Rickey Henderson quote on the A’s final game in Oakland with no source:

They then got appropriately called out for that by Marisa Ingemi of The San Francisco Chronicle, the paper that published the quote in question:

After Ingemi did that, B/R added a “via” to the Chronicle‘s Susan Slusser, who wrote that story, in a follow-up tweet. But they still provided no link to the story (which had a lot of important further context to that one line from Henderson, including how he feels about this overall and how he thinks MLB won’t return to Oakland):

This did produce one very funny thing, though:

Rating: *****

1. Ben Verlander takes Ethan Hullihen’s Rowdy Tellez table without credit, Pat McAfee then shows it on TV

This week’s most prominent game of aggregation telephone started with Fox Sports MLB analyst Ben Verlander. On Tuesday, Verlander posted a table of the contract incentives for Pittsburgh Pirates’ first baseman Rowdy Tellez, which included plate appearances. Tellez was designated for assignment this week four short of 425 PA, which would have triggered a $200,000 bonus. But Verlander posted this with no credit:

That table came from Ethan Hullihen, known for his regular analysis of the Pirates’ roster and contracts. He originally posted it back in December:

But it came up a lot around this move, obviously, including with James Santelli appropriately quoting and linking Hullihen’s old post, and then with 93.7 The Fan hosts Andrew Fillipponi and Chris Mueller appropriately citing Hullihen on their radio show:

Despite all that, and it being very clear where this information came from, Verlander chose not to cite it whatsoever. He later explained his rationale with somewhat of an apology in a separate tweet Wednesday, but didn’t add a reply to his earlier tweet:

“I wasn’t sure” is a bizarre excuse for not citing a source. And Verlander’s had further effects, particularly when The Pat McAfee Show picked up his tweet:

To McAfee’s credit, after Hullihen criticized him on X/Twitter, he offered actual apologies both there and on the air.

And while it’s unfortunate that McAfee initially cited Verlander as the source here rather than Hullihen, he did at least cite where he got it from. And his correction and citation here’s appreciated, especially with him doing so on TV as well as on social media. So we won’t give him any negative points this time, but he might want to be more careful with who he cites himself in the future, especially now that Verlander has made it clear he thinks “wasn’t sure” is an acceptable reason to take other people’s work without credit.

Rating: ***** for Verlander

Aggregator standings (these are bad): 

@_MLFootball: 25
@NFL_DovKleiman: 20
@SKProFootball: 15
X/Grok: 10
Ben Verlander: 5
@BleacherReport: 5
@mymixtapez: 5
@NFLRookieWatxh: 5
Colin Cowherd: 5
@jasrifootball: 5
Redditor @thefortitude: 5
@GolazoAmerica: 5
@Spotify_Swift: 5
Barstool Sports: 4
Fan Recap: 4
@GinoHard_: 3
@BR_OpenIce: 3
@theScore: 3
@ThePlayersTV: 3
@SleeperNFL: 3
@PHLEaglesNation: 3
@DiscussingFilm: 3
@CBSSportsGolazo: 3
@BR_Betting: 3
@SportsCenter: 2
@TheDunkCentral: 2

Aggregation subject standings (these are not bad):

The San Francisco Chronicle: 10
@EthanHullihen: 5
@deionsandersjr on YouTube: 5
@TheABinKC: 5
@TheDunkCentral: 5
Kent Babb/The Washington Post: 5
Pat Brennan/The Cincinnati Enquirer: 5
AFP: 5
Reuters: 5
The U.S. Sun: 5
Mark Craig/The (Minneapolis) Star-Tribune: 5
Mike Florio/Pro Football Talk: 5
Susan Slusser/The San Francisco Chronicle: 5
Mike Silver/The San Francisco Chronicle: 5
DenverSports.com: 4
TWSN: 4
@uSTADIUM: 3
@bryceshockeylife on Instagram: 3
@morning_skate: 3
@AryePulli: 3
Big Play Slay: 3
The 25/10 Show: 3
Deadline: 3
Ryan Michael: 3
Tom Fornelli/CBS Sports: 3
Ben Fischer/Sports Business Journal: 2
Jay Glazer/Fox Sports: 2
Natasha Dye/People: 2
Clarence Hill/The Fort Worth Star-Telegram: 2
@AZCardinals: 2

Thanks for reading This Week In Bad Aggregation! User submissions are always welcome via e-mail or Twitter.

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz