We hardly knew ye.
The week’s hottest rumor died of natural causes Friday when Cubs President Theo Epstein told reporters the Cubs “essentially” have had no trade discussions yet involving any player.
“A simple way to put it is there have been a lot of trade rumors involving the Cubs, and there is essentially zero trade talks right now involving the Cubs,” he said. “So there’s a real disparity between the noise and the reality.”
So how did the Machado rumor escalate so quickly? It was a perfect storm of events that converged in Chicago over a five-day period, taking media speculation into overdrive and giving the rumor a life of its own.