I’m hitting the Friday-afternoon wall, and I’m concerned the “From the Wikipedia” post I prepped earlier might be a bit too dark for public consumption, so I’ll check out for the evening with this:

The offseason rumor mill is already churning, and nothing inspires reader e-mails as frequently as vague reports on the Internet and talk-radio that certain teams are interested in certain players.

Here’s my general rule of thumb for rumors: If it doesn’t sound feasible, it’s probably not true. If it does sound feasible, it’s probably not true.

Pay attention to the language used in so many of these reports. Know that there’s a huge difference between “could” and “will” and between “considering” and “planning.”

For example: I personally guarantee that Omar Minaya will consider trading David Wright this offseason. One day, he will just be thinking about stuff — who knows what — and he’ll think, “should I trade David Wright this offseason?”

Soon after, he’ll probably think, “nah.” Then he’ll get on with his day. But he will have considered it. Will he have seriously considered it? No. But it was considered nonetheless.

There should be many moves this offseason, as there are in every offseason, and I know as well as anyone that it’s fun to speculate on what they should or what they will be.

But the offseason hasn’t even started yet, and no GM — and certainly no writer — has his finger firmly on what the market will be for free agents or trade chips. We can speculate on both, of course, based on examples from the past. But we definitely can’t know.

So often, deals that are rumored to be in the works for weeks or months never pan out, and the ones that actually happen have never been rumored anywhere. Sometimes it’s the other way around, of course, but not often enough for me to be convinced about any scoop I read anywhere.

In other words: Enjoy the rumors, but enjoy them skeptically.

Chuck D is so cool.

Apparently Repoz at Baseball Think Factory found his way here and linked up my recent Newsday post. It has sparked an interesting discussion over there and I urge you to check it out.

First off, as commenter NaOH pointed out both there and here, I probably missed a big aspect of the reasoning behind the decision. He writes:

Cablevision owns Newsday. Cablevision, for now, also owns the Knicks and Rangers, but they will be spinning off that portion of the business. Cablevision’s core assets are tied to television and cable: Rainbow Media Holdings, digital cable service, providing Internet service, and VOIP. This move is about using Newsday as another value-added component to Cablevision’s range of core offerings. Why? Because Verizon FIOS is steadily chipping away at their customer base.

That seems pretty likely, when I think about it. Still, I wonder a) how much value access to Newsday adds to a television or cable subscription and b) how long Newsday could possibly last if its parent company is making moves that will stave off online readership.

I have a “From the Wikipedia” post I’m hoping to do later today and I don’t want to harp on this since it’s not really about sports, but I find the whole subject massively interesting. I suppose I should, since I work in online journalism.

A man I firmly believe should be in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Sean Forman — the creator of baseball-reference.com — provided a pretty interesting business model for newspapers in the BBTF thread. He’s one of very few people that I’m willing to admit are likely way, way smarter than me, so it’s probably worth reading what he has to say.

Anyway, whatever the reason, the main point of said Newsday post stands: I won’t be able to read Davidoff or Best or Lennon anymore, and that’s a shame.