The Rumor Mill: Why Nobody Wants To Blink First

With the Major League Baseball trade deadline set for 6 p.m. ET on Monday, August 3, one thing has become abundantly clear.

There are far more rumors than there are trades.

For the better part of two weeks, every baseball insider, analyst and self-proclaimed trade expert has confidently connected Player X to Team Y, only to reconnect that same player to Team Z a few hours later. Throw in a third team, a couple of prospects, cash considerations and a mystery reliever, and suddenly you've got tomorrow's headline.

Or yesterdays.

Yet here we are entering the final weekend before the deadline, and the blockbuster everyone keeps predicting remains somewhere between the imagination and the transaction wire.

While everyone else seems determined to tell you what might happen, I'd rather talk about why almost nothing has happened.

The answer isn't all that complicated.

The expanded 12-team playoff format has created something baseball has rarely experienced this late in the season - a league overflowing with hope.

Hope, of course, is a dangerous thing.

Entering the weekend, only a handful of clubs have realistically fallen out of postseason contention. The Rockies, Angels, Royals, Athletics and Mets have watched both the standings and their playoff odds drift far enough away that selling has become less of a choice and more of an acceptance of reality.

A couple of other clubs remain mathematically alive, but their odds would require the kind of late-summer miracle usually reserved for Hollywood scripts.

That leaves 23 organizations staring at the standings and reaching the same conclusion:

"We're still in this."

Whether that's confidence or wishful thinking depends entirely on which side of the weekend they're standing on when Monday arrives.

It's amazing what a Wild Card race can do for optimism.

Or denial.

That's why the phones haven't produced the avalanche of trades many expected.

Nobody wants to declare themselves a seller after Friday if a series sweep over the weekend could change the conversation by Sunday night. Likewise, contenders aren't eager to overpay today if another club suddenly changes direction tomorrow.

General managers aren't just evaluating talent.

They're evaluating leverage.

Dodgers broadcaster Rick Monday summed it up perfectly during a recent telecast when he posed a simple question about this year's deadline.

Who's going to get the best bargain?

Rick Monday's question may ultimately define this year's trade deadline, because bargains don't exist until someone gets uncomfortable.

As first pitches are thrown around the league this afternoon, front offices may be watching the out-of-town scoreboard almost as closely as their own. A disappointing weekend can transform optimism into realism. A surprise sweep can convince a front office that help is worth the prospect capital. Every game between now and Monday carries a little more weight than the one before it—not just in the standings, but in conference rooms across the sport.

That's why so many reports claiming a team is "close" or a general manager "hinted" at acquiring a particular player should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. Trade deadline season has a remarkable ability to turn ordinary comments into extraordinary headlines. A general manager says he's "keeping his options open," and somehow by lunchtime he's apparently zeroed in on the biggest name on the market.

Reality is usually much less dramatic.

By Monday afternoon, the rumor mill will either look prophetic or ridiculous. That's simply the nature of baseball's busiest shopping day. Hundreds of names will circulate. Only a handful will actually change uniforms.

The real story isn't who gets traded.

It's who finally decides to blink first.

Until then, we'll leave the prognostications, hypothetical trades and color-coded rumor charts to the so-called experts. Here at Dodgers Report, we'll happily wait for something far less exciting—but considerably more reliable.

An actual trade.