Chris Cotillo grew up a self-proclaimed die-hard baseball fan, but it wasn’t until high

school that he realized he could turn this interest into a job.

Cotillo, a UNC-Chapel Hill senior from Boston, spoke to a UNC journalism class

Monday about his journey from baseball fan to baseball insider.

“I think my passion growing up always was to work in sports,” he said. “And once we

realized I wasn’t good enough to play baseball, I thought I could do it another way.”

In high school, Cotillo became fascinated with Major League Baseball. In July 2011, he

started an anonymous Twitter account called “Trade Deadliner” where he would reach out to

MLB players, general managers and agents about players getting traded to different teams and

tweet about the news. Eventually, he changed the account over to his name.

Cotillo’s big break came in December 2013, when he tweeted about a rumored deal for

then-Detroit Tigers pitcher Doug Fister to be traded to the Washington Nationals. The rumor was

true, and he was the first person to break the story.

“When I tweeted about it, I had nothing to lose,” he said. “I panicked that it wasn’t true,

but I didn’t think it would become a career anyway.”

Several large news outlets picked up the story on Twitter and cited Cotillo, which made

his account grow in popularity. He was working for SB Nation for free at the time and was

promoted to a part-time agreement to work with them.

Now, he runs his own website through SB Nation called MLB Daily Dish, which draws

thousands of readers and makes money from advertisements.

“The main point is how important Twitter is to today’s news structure,” Cotillo said.

“There’s a huge following for up-to-the-minute news, and Twitter is the stage where all of this

stuff happens first.”

 His advice for the journalism students is to be active on social media, especially Twitter.

He said that Twitter has allowed him to break the news of both minor and major league deals and

contracts and stay relevant, all while “keeping a finger on the pulse of what is going on in the

world of baseball.”

Cotillo is graduating from UNC in May, and is unsure of exactly what he wants to do

next, but has a goal in mind: to be baseball’s Adam Schefter, the popular insider for the National

Football League. His favorite part of the job so far has been interacting with famous athletes and

gaining respect from them.

“The cool part about this job is that it gives you the opportunity to interact with people

that you never thought you’d be able to,” Cotillo said. “It has been a very interesting part-time

job during college, and I have Twitter to thank for that.”