I hate this part of the year.

There are 20,000 rumors, and 5 of them will actually happen. This Hot Stove stuff keeps Ken Rosenthal employed, but it just gives me a headache.

I guess you either really like this part of the baseball calendar or you don’t. It’s like early March in college hoops. I don’t care about bubble teams – just get me the bracket and let me start filling it out.

At this point, I just want to know if Jamie Moyer is coming back. Same with Pat Burrell. Sign, or sign somewhere else. Put me out of my misery. And then we can start arguing where they should bat in the lineup, or if they are the 3rd starter or the 4th starter, because those discussions I do enjoy. I know this is the naive viewpoint – there are a million business reasons why this seems to drag on longer than the presidential election cycle – but I just get sick of reading it all. And I do read it all. It’s a sickness. It tortures me.

Murray Chass has a column on his site about the offseason rumor mill, and the log lists of players who could be traded. He doesn’t think it’s the most productive use of anyone’s time:

Many baseball writers feel compelled to compile such lists before winter meetings because they feel they owe it to fans or they want to show off their expertise. They are fortunate no one compiles a batting average on their accuracy.

Some people would argue that there’s nothing wrong with speculating on which players might be traded. It’s all harmless fun, they would say. But it really isn’t. It’s irresponsible and it’s misleading.

Worse are the trades that are writers’ works of fiction. Needing something to write, a writer decides that player A would be a good guy to trade. Now he has to come up with Player B to complete the deal. When he has the match, he decides it’s a good deal and writes about it as if the two teams were discussing it.

I think the final straw was talk of Randy Wolf to the Phillies. I think we should have a rule that once Randy Wolf becomes part of the discussion, all discussion ceases and we begin to argue about something completely unrelated to baseball or the Phillies. No friggin’ Randy Wolf, please. He is the epitomy of average and exactly what this team doesn’t need. Plus, while I recognize that he’s a California kid who wanted to play near where he grew up, screw him for passing on returning to the Phillies twice. Enjoy your World Series ring-less fingers, Randy.

For the record, I think Moyer will return, Burrell is a goner, and none of us will be happy with what will be left in left (field).

In the meantime, for those who eat this stuff up, check out MLBtraderumors.com, where they had 11 updates today on Jake Peavy. Christ.