Photo courtesy Giants reporter Andrew Baggarly of CSN Bay Area.
It looks like the first shoe may have dropped.
According to reports out of San Francisco, the Phillies have a deal in place that would send outfielder Hunter Pence to the San Francisco Giants. The deal is reportedly contingent on owner approval. The trade "may include another player" and includes catcher Tommy Joseph.
KPIX Sports Director Dennis O'Donnell has been on top of this from the start. KPIX is the CBS affiliate in San Francisco.
In a night of fake rumors, this appears to be real, as passed on from CSNBayArea's Andrew Baggarly:
Baggarly did some detective work, calling CBS5. The account is not a hoax account, but the Giants refuse to acknowledge a deal is in place:
Baggarly says that CBS 5 led their sports report with the story and shared the above photo.
KPIX had the original report that the Phillies and the Giants were deep in talks. The sports director O'Donnell is a long-time, well-connected area reporter. Read about him here.
Other San Francisco sportswriters remain skeptical and report there "is no deal", but one does recognize O'Donnell as someone who has broken Giants news before.
Whether "there is no deal" means "the teams never agreed to players and were taking the deal to ownership" remains to be seen.
Schulman also notes that this same source broke the Aubrey Huff and Benjie Molina trades in the past and says, "he's a good reporter. He has good sources."
Stay tuned.
