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Devan Kaney Quadruples Down on Bryce Harper Report, Which “Came to Me from Rhys’ Camp and then Rhys Hoskins Confirmed Himself”
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I think we’re all ready to be done with the Devan Kaney / Bryce Harper / Rhys Hoskins story at this point. Hoskins is a Cleveland Guardian, so it’s over anyway.
But since we’ve spent all of this time and energy on it already, we’ll bring it to a proper close.
DK went on Good Day Philadelphia Wednesday morning for a segment lasting a couple of minutes and said the following. The new information I’m highlighting in bold:
“It all started when a representative from Rhys Hoskins’ camp reached out to me last week and said ‘hey I have a scoop for you, Rhys might re-sign with the Phillies and Bryce Harper is on board and Dave Dombrowski’s kicking tires on it.‘ But (Dombrowski) ultimately decided it wasn’t a fit, which I did report. And it’s not, let’s be real. Bryce Harper addressed that too. (Hoskins) can’t play 1st base. Bryce Harper plays 1st and (Rhys) has been declining offensively and he signed with the Guardians. But this was something that came to me from Rhys’ camp and then Rhys Hoskins confirmed himself. I know that Bryce Harper has been top of the conversation this offseason, as has Dave Dombrowski, and Bryce hasn’t been shy about sharing his feelings about Dave and his “not-elite” comments. And I got the sense from when Bryce Harper spoke to us down in spring training that he didn’t feel that Dave Dombrowski gave him enough support in the lineup, because Bryce Harper doesn’t see a ton of pitches. He wanted more power, right-handed power, whether that came in the form of Rhys Hoskins or someone else, I don’t know what Bryce Harper’s thought was, but Dave Dombrowski did kick tires on Rhys Hoskins.”
The conversation continued with Kaney reiterating what she said on WIP Tuesday afternoon, that there was a hash-it-out meeting where the Phillies asked Harper to keep things in house, which is highly ironic, since Harper was mad at Dombrowski for allowing the “not elite” comments to leave said house.
DK also said she had a Phillies front office source:
“When you have Rhys Hoskins himself and someone in the Phillies front office confirming a story, I think anyone would do what I did. You’re not not going to break that story. I also saw headlines saying I back tracked. I didn’t back track. My report was accurate. I verified it. I also never said that Bryce Harper publicly said that he wanted Rhys Hoskins. I said he wanted a right-handed bat. That is factual. He said that in his interview again on WIP (Wednesday).”
Alright, there’s lot going on here, but this is what Harper said on WIP Tuesday morning, for context:
Ritchie: Was that something the guys in the locker room were like, ‘hey Rhys is out there, we could use a right handed power hitter, Rhy is available,’ – was that discussed at any point?
Harper: “Yeah we didn’t really talk about Rhys. We talked about Rhys maybe last year at (the trade) deadline at a certain point. But we never talked about Rhys this offseason, team-wise we didn’t, maybe internally they did. But for us we never talked about it in camp or anything like that. Obviously you’d always love to have Rhys back in any fashion. It kind of doesn’t fit for us as a team right now. I don’t know what the DH spot, 1st base, outfield, that kind of stuff so it didn’t really make sense. Obviously we’d love to have him back at any point but it just didn’t make sense.”
Kind of a mess. Kaney’s original tweet said, quote, “I’m told Harper suggested Dave Dombrowski look into a reunion with Rhys Hoskins who remains a free agent.” Harper came out and said “we never talked about Rhys this offseason, team-wise we didn’t, maybe internally they did. But for us we never talked about it in camp.” I’ve compared Kaney’s original tweet and Harper’s quote a hundred times and I see nothing but a direct contradiction.
From a reporting standpoint, if DK went with this solely on info from Rhys’ camp, and Rhys himself, that would be a violation. But she says she had a Phillies front office source on it as well, which is typically acceptable. Back in the day, editors wanted three sources on a story, now two is fine if they’re good sources. I highly, highly doubt that DK or anybody around the Phillies clubhouse or games would simply make shit up, so that’s a pointless claim. Regardless, I don’t think Hoskins’ camp is giving anything more to Kaney after she outed them as a source.
As Fred Durst once said, it’s all about the he said / she said bullshit, and the “he” in this case just happens to be Bryce Harper, so naturally people will side with the superstar baseball player over the WIP employee. That is to be expected. But Phillies fans seemed to be much less focused on the reporting itself and more about the fact that a Hoskins return didn’t seem plausible, so they kind of conflate the two and come to this conclusion that the reporting is shitty because of that implausibility, which is not a linear logical pathway. It’s really two different things. Kaney herself wasn’t suggesting that the Phillies should kick the tires on Rhys Hoskins, she reported that Harper “suggested” it, so the attribution for the implausible personnel move is attributed to Bryce himself.
For what it’s worth, Harper has said in the past that he would be open to moving back to the outfield to help the team add a power bat elsewhere, but he’s post-Tommy John and had elbow and wrist injuries and his arm strength probably isn’t what it needs to be for an outfield position.
Anyway, there you have it. Now we move on to the next story.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com