Look how stuff gets spun:

Yesterday, Adam Rubin published a report that the Royals are looking to deal Jose Guillen and “have identified the Mets as a potential trading partner, although there was no deal considered close.”

James Kannengeiser already did a fine job pointing out how dumb this trade would be at Amazin’ Avenue.

I would guess the whole thing is bluster. It doesn’t take a well-placed source to tell you the Royals would like to trade Jose Guillen this offseason. The Royals don’t have much money to spend, and Jose Guillen is owed $12 million despite not being very good at baseball.

So the Daily News prints it. And since the Mets have had some reported interest in Guillen in the past, can take on some payroll and need a power bat for a corner outfield spot, it’s not hard to identify them as a potential partner.

Here’s where it jumps a step, though: The Sporting News, citing the Daily News, credits the rumor to a Mets source and implies that the Mets are interested. RealGM.com does the same thing.

But that’s not what the story says, at all. Pay attention to the language: The Royals have identified the Mets as a potential trade partner. That’s intentionally vague. All that means is someone in the Royals organization hopes the team can pawn Guillen off on the Mets.

A rumor developed last offseason that the Mets could trade Carlos Beltran for Robinson Cano, so I traced it back to its origin and pointed out that it was clearly speculation gone out of control.

But check the comments section on that MetsBlog post: Readers alternately weighed in on the rumor as though it were real, or accused me of forwarding something that wasn’t real.

All I was aiming to do was expose how speculative and nonsensical so many hot-stove reports are. Pay attention to the way things are worded and trace everything back to its original source and you’ll figure out pretty quickly that about 50 percent of the Internet’s rumored trades start out with one person speculating.