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Neil Weinberg is the Founder of New English D and a writer at Beyond The Box Score. You can follow and interact with him on Twitter @NeilWeinberg44.

I think I might name my first born “Sources” so that every time there’s a hot stove rumbling, he or she will be credited with the scoop. We’ve reached the time of year in which there’s a dreadfully limited about of baseball and a plethora of people speculating wildly about how teams might adjust their rosters for the upcoming season. Don’t get me wrong, I love the strategy involved in roster construction, I just don’t care for the media driven hype and speculation surrounding the experience.

There’s loads of value in high quality reporting, but there is very little value in rushing to report rumors with very little issue content. Let’s consider two examples. Reporting that the Rockies and Cardinals exchanged names surrounding a Troy Tulowitzki deal is real reporting, but telling us that the Cardinals are interested in Troy Tulowitzki isn’t. Tulowitzki is the best shortstop in baseball. Every team is interested “at the right price.”

That’s another favorite phrase. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say a team would move Player X for the right price. Well of course they would, that’s definitional. The Angels would trade Trout for Harper, Strasburg, Rendon, and Giolito. I would trade my 1999 Saturn for a Lexus. It’s important to sit back and consider where trade rumors come from so that you can properly process the information you’re going to be inundated with over the next several weeks.

Sometimes it’s cold hard fact. If a reporter hears that a team is actually about to make a trade, that’s something work discussing. You’ll hear words like “imminent” and “exchanging names.” Hopefully some consideration of physicals or dollar amounts will come up as well. This is a trade or signing that is happening. This is okay.

Another place where rumors are generated is in the minds of agents and general managers who are trying to affect the market for a given player. It’s in an agent’s interest to leak involvement with certain teams to put pressure on other teams who they want to increase their offer. General managers and their staffs also leak information for the same type of strategic reasons. This is almost always nonsense to be ignored.

You’ll also see front office or player sources leak a rumor to generate favor with reporters with whom they want to build a relationship. There’s a currency of information in the industry of which people want to be a part. Sometimes these turn out to be true, but a lot of the time they turn out to be bunk.

The key is distinguishing between information that is actually useful and day to day conversations without much real effect. It’s good business practice to listen to anyone who calls about a trade and most front offices put in calls to most free agents to gauge interest if there’s any spot at all for that player. Knowing the difference between something substantive and something meaningless is important.

The problem is that there are those in the industry who either can’t tell the difference or choose not to in order to generate traffic or interest. A headline with “Max Scherzer” and “trade” is sexy, even if it isn’t going anywhere. I don’t mean this to be an indictment of any one specific person, but there are many who spend a lot of time cultivating sources so that they can “have it first.” I don’t really see the value here.

Good investigative journalism is tremendously important, but what do we gain from hearing about a big free agent signing a few hours before the team announces the deal? Covering a team and bringing news to fans is valuable, but this race to be the first to have every scrap of everything is kind of silly. Baseball’s a game, it’s not the Cuban Missile Crisis. And isn’t it more fun when the Tigers sign Prince Fielder out of nowhere?

I don’t mean for this to be combative, I mean it to be dampening. Don’t get so caught up in what I somewhat affectionately call “The Trade Rumor Industrial Complex” in honor of our 34th president. Your team is going to sign and trade for who they are going to sign and trade for whether Ken Rosenthal or Jon Heyman scoops the story or not.

I find it rather distracting. I have no problem speculating or suggesting what a team might want to do, but to report on a team’s activities as if it’s the inner workings of the NSA is awfully silly. What’s even more annoying is that there’s very little penalty for those who put out a thin rumor. If you say the Yankees are talking about dealing Jeter, that doesn’t mean they have to deal Jeter for you to have technically been correct.

I think those of us with sizable platforms have a responsibility to raise the level of discussion with smart analysis rather than mindless trade rumors. Our goal as writers should be to entertain and enlighten, not get credit for getting to the finish line four minutes before our competitors. I think we should aim higher. I think we’d be better off with a little less hot stove hype and a little more thoughtful conversation.

Ultimately, the media will respond to reader and viewer preferences, so it’s up to you if you want this kind of coverage. I suggest you give your page views to thoughtful analysts rather than someone chasing a scoop. The person who waits to comment on a trade until they actually know for a fact that it is happening is usually the person with something more interesting to say.