Fact or Fiction for All the Biggest MLB Free-Agency, Trade Rumors

There's an old saying that says don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see. That might not be any more true than when it comes to the art of MLB "rumor mongering." In this business, negotiations and posturing often play out in the media, and it's up to us, the readers, to make sense of it.

You can't always discern which reports are legit and which are likely to look silly in a matter of days or weeks, but if you are mindful of a team's needs, its budget and its recent history, it goes a long way toward figuring out what makes sense and what doesn't.

From Masahiro Tanaka to Stephen Drew, here's my take on five reports surrounding the biggest ongoing stories of the offseason.

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