ESPN's Jeff Passan defends Jon Heyman over Aaron Judge 'Arson' blunder

ESPN's Jeff Passan has defended fellow MLB insider Jon Heyman over Heyman's miscue regarding the future of All-Star slugger Aaron Judge. 

"I’m gonna take people behind the scenes here, because the biggest nightmare of any reporter is getting something big wrong," Passan explained during Wednesday's edition of "The Pat McAfee Show," per Brandon Contes of Awful Announcing. "And you know what? I feel bad for Jon Heyman. I feel bad for anyone who’s in a scenario like that. You trust people that you talk to and when they give you bad information, you get screwed by it and it was an unfortunate thing." 

As noted by WFAN/Audacy, Heyman dropped a baseball bombshell when he tweeted on Tuesday afternoon that "Arson Judge appears headed to" the San Francisco Giants. The typo aside, Heyman's report was believable because the reigning American League Most Valuable Player had repeatedly been linked with the Giants in rumors. Judge grew up a fan of the West Coast club as a native of Linden, California. 

Heyman soon retracted the claim, and it was learned less than 24 hours later that Judge had agreed to return to the New York Yankees via a nine-year contract worth $360 million. To his credit, Heyman addressed his Judge error in a New York Post piece published Wednesday. 

"When a couple false reports started to circulate (including one by me on Twitter) it appeared he was heading to the Giants, folks in the Yankees room said it was 'like a morgue' in their room, which is understandable," Heyman wrote. "Sorry about that." 

According to Taylor Wirth of NBC Sports Bay Area, Heyman also admitted during an appearance on San Francisco sports radio station 95.7 The Game he "went too quickly" with what was a "premature" story. 

If nothing else, Heyman's "Arson Judge" meme could give fans entertainment for months and maybe even years to come.