Too many people are guessing, theorizing, and pontificating as to what is going on. The agents for Reyes and most of the teams interested in him (including the Mets) have not leaked much information and that has people grasping for things. And to generate stories, people are taking leaps of faith. The biggest was those was on Sunday when it was leaked by one member of the media that a Reyes deal with the Marlins was done except for some minor details. PLEASE STOP THE INSANITY!

For example, some people suggest that Hanley Ramirez has been asked to switch positions — others contend he has not. Some says it is a slam dunk he will move anywhere — even center field. The only thing I can tell you is Hanley Ramirez said as recently as Friday,”I am the shortstop right now.”

– Rich Coutinho, WFAN.com.

All requisite hot-stove snark aside for a second, what percentage of baseball’s offseason rumors would you say are legitimately attached to actual front-office proceedings? I don’t mean nebulous “discussings” or “coulds” or “considerings.” I mean the real stuff — trade proposals, free-agent offers, things like that. Those can’t account for more than, what, 30 percent of the rumors, right?

And then think about how often a deal goes down that you hadn’t heard rumored at all. What percentage of the things that are actually happening do you think the things that are reported to be happening represent? I bet it’s not much. Maybe 20 percent, tops.

So even though there are decent reporters out there doing good work in the hot-stove season, it’s easy — perhaps even sensible — to get overwhelmed and frustrated with the glut of unsubstantiated nonsense, especially when there’s so little reward for sifting through the crap to find the real news.

To me it seems like the most productive use of offseason time is to avoid all speculative information and to instead just wait until deals actually get done and decide what I think about them then.

Something else to consider: When you see anonymously sourced hot-stove news credited to a team source, what’s in it for the team source? Why are we reading so many reports about the Marlins’ wooing free agents and so few about every other team? Are the Marlins really the only team pursuing free agents, or are they the only team very invested in having you know that they’re pursuing free agents?

Plan A is still Jose Reyes, but the Mets already have formulated Plan B.

If Reyes is not re-signed, the Mets may try to compensate for that loss of offense by attempting to make Daniel Murphy the full-time second baseman, according to an organizational source.

– Mike Puma, N.Y. Post.

Not to toot my own horn, but I suggested exactly the same thing on the Mostly Mets Podcast a couple weeks ago.

Actually, wait: Absolutely to toot my own horn. Here’s a photo of my own horn. Toot!

Point is, it makes a hell of a lot of sense. I didn’t have any organizational sources or anything, but if Reyes leaves, Ruben Tejada becomes the most obvious internal candidate to play shortstop, leaving a hole at second and the Mets missing Reyes’ bat.

At the end of the season, a reporter asked Terry Collins why he wouldn’t give Murphy a position to spend the offseason working on. Collins said he was waiting to see “where some guys end up.” I read that at the time to mean that Murphy would concentrate on second if Reyes left. This report adds a little weight to that, but really no more than common sense does.

OMG OMG OMG OMG.

I’m not going to bother cutting these up and putting them in chronological order because I assume you’ve been on the Internet for a while and you’re pretty good at decoding these things by now. You’ve seen Memento, right?

Ahh… ahh… holy hell, the awesome. It’s blinding.

What do you think they talked about? I mean, I know they talked about knuckleballs. But do you think they told like, stories of different sticky life situations their knuckleballs got them out of? Great knuckleballs they have thrown? The sense of alienation a knuckleballer feels in a rotation full of conventional pitchers?

I mean we’re talking a full day and a half’s worth of conversation here, so that’s a lot of knuckleball-speak. Presumably they covered all those topics and more, maybe some deep knuckleball talk we civilians can’t even really conceive with our current level of understanding.

In any case, it was probably sweet. I hope they resisted the urge to hold a knuckleball competition though. C’mon guys, this was supposed to be a bonding thing.

Hat tip to Eric Simon.

If you’re looking for stuff to read today, I heartily recommend the final installment in Patrick Flood’s three-part examination of David Wright and the Citi Field walls.

Things are going to slow down a bit here today because I’m working on a couple of longer things I’m hoping to publish tomorrow. But I encourage you to spend whatever time you might spend reading TedQuarters to listen to this week’s edition of the Mostly Mets Podcast if you are able to and you haven’t already.

I think it’s good. But I must admit that I don’t listen to many podcasts. Because I spend a decent portion of my workdays writing, I usually prefer the words bouncing around in my head while I’m at my desk to be the ones that will ultimately wind up on this page. I find I can’t even really listen to music with lyrics lest I start drifting into weird and barely intelligible Robert Plant tangents in the middle of blog posts about Taco Bell or whatever. I sit in silence, or listen to my Bad Plus and Miles Davis stations on Pandora.

But that’s me. I want to know about you. Please help us help you by taking this quick five-question survey on podcasts.