The Frustrations of Trade Rumors

It's fun to root for a team that is looking to buy at the trade deadline. That means that your team is in the hunt and is going to get better. However, the last few weeks have me wishing the deadline would just get here already.

The main reason for all of this is these Justin Upton rumors coming from various outlets. One reporter says one thing, and another reporter says the opposite. Between Jon Morosi, Buster Olney, Jayson Stark, Jon Heyman, and Ken Rosenthal, you've heard about every possible rumor in the book.

The fact is that teams play their cards close to their chest around this time of year. Why wouldn't they? Leverage is key in late July, and giving too much information to reporters could hurt that. It's getting to the point where trade rumors are meaningless. There's no way to know what to believe and what not to believe.

Your Pittsburgh Pirates are in a great spot right now. Because of that, they are weighing all of their options concerning players to add at the end of the month. That has them being linked to basically every player that could be traded at the deadline. When this is all said and done and you look at the all the players that will get dealt in the next two weeks, I guarantee that the Pirates had rumored interest in 90% of them. They're doing the right thing, you need to follow up on every single possibility to try and find the best deal(s).

I'm not blaming the organization, they aren't doing anything wrong. I'm not blaming reporters either, they are doing the best they can at a really tough job. I'm just here to tell you all to not look too much into stuff you hear. You'll know that the Pirates are going to trade for a specific player when they trade for that player. You simply can't know for sure ahead of time, there is just too much going on too quickly.

Other teams don't help either. The Padres recently said they are thinking about offering Carlos Quentin a contract extension. Is that even true? Or are they just saying that to try and get a better offer for him? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the Padres to give a lot of money to a player like Quentin, but the rumor is there. There's all kinds of stories like this around the league.

Don't believe everything you read, and just try to be patient. 80% of the stuff you read on the rumor mill is going to mean nothing at all at the end, so just try to ignore it for now. The Pirates will make a trade or two at the deadline, and when that happens we can talk about it. Until then, let's just enjoy watching the team we have right now play winning baseball.