Finally, the Trade Finale

As a wrap-up to my previous post, "Trade Rumor Amusement," here are the players most rumored to be traded who ended up not moving anywhere:

• Pat Burrell
• Andruw Jones
• Brad Lidge
• Jon Lieber
  
• Scott Linebrink
• Roy Oswalt
• Scott Proctor
• Alex Rodriguez
• Jason Schmidt
• Alfonso Soriano
• Miguel Tejada
• Dontrelle Willis
• Barry Zito
  

Carlos Lee did get traded, but to the Rangers. Wilson Betemit also, but to the Dodgers. Greg Maddux was traded, but not, as rumored, for someone valuable.

The nearly unanimous vote for best trade goes to the Yankees, who picked up a patient and powerful bat in Bobby Abreu and a fifth (or fourth) starter in Cory Lidle, in exchange for four prospects with questionable potential and a pitcher who's no longer used.

The lesson here is that today's media has grown addicted to reporting the process of gathering news, rather than reporting the news itself once it's been gathered. A journalist's role used to involve filtering rumors to discover real stories. These days, many journalists aim to report the rumors before the competition can do it first.