Jeff Passan recalls getting ‘my ass kicked’ by Ken Rosenthal on Jhoan Durán trade scoop

There are worse problems to have than being the guy every player in the league assumes has the inside track on their next contract. But as Jeff Passan found out at this year’s All-Star Game, it also means the one time someone beats you to the punch is the one that sticks around a lot longer than you’d like.

Passan shared a story with Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman’s on Yahoo Sports’ Baseball Bar-B-Cast, and it’s a good one. He found himself in the National League clubhouse on Home Run Derby night, chasing down a story on players and a potential 2028 Olympics agreement, when he crossed paths with Jhoan Durán, who was spending the evening with his kids. Passan asked the Phillies closer about his experience with the World Baseball Classic and whether he’d consider staying in the Olympic Village down the line. Durán obliged. Passan shook his hand, turned to leave, and assumed the exchange had run its course.

It hadn’t.

“Hey, come over here for a second,” Durán called back. “How do you get all the news?” Durán asked him.

Here’s the thing about that question: of all the players in that clubhouse who could’ve asked it, Durán is maybe the one guy on earth Passan least wanted to hear it from.

“And it was really ironic that Jhoan Durán was the one to say this because last year, the great emasculation of my trade line was getting my ass kicked by Ken Rosenthal on the Jhoan Durán trade,” Passan said.

Passan had built up what he felt was a solid read on where Durán was landing, through all his usual channels and conversations, and had convinced himself the Twins closer was Seattle-bound. He was sitting with one of his bosses, presumably feeling good about where things stood, when Ken Rosenthal’s tweet broke the actual news in the middle of that meeting.

BREAKING: Phillies close to acquiring Jhoan Duran from Twins, sources tell @TheAthletic.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 30, 2025

Passan called it “the biggest dick punch imaginable,” which, having now heard the story, checks out.

ESPN’s MLB insider also accounted for how he’d been beaten in the first place. He said he deliberately avoids becoming
“too much of a pest” with sources once he senses he has a firm handle on where a deal is heading, opting to sit back and let the story arrive rather than pursue it aggressively. That instinct serves him well more often than not. On Durán, specifically, it betrayed him.

So there was something almost poetic about the very player at the center of last year’s whiff turning around a year later to innocently ask how he gets all his scoops. Passan clearly caught the irony too, and he didn’t let the moment pass without getting something out of it, telling Durán, “So this means you’re going to tell me where you’re signing in free agency, right?”

Which, you know, fair.

If nothing else, Passan can afford to laugh about it now, the sting long since dulled by distance. That luxury will almost certainly evaporate the instant a Rosenthal notification beats his own sources to the punch.