All we know is what writers and reporters are being fed, and, well, the majority of the time very little materializes. These people have jobs; airtime must be filled; articles must be written. Fans love speculation, if for nothing else that it piques a natural, starving curiosity.

Biannually, baseball fans are treated to running episodes of Ripley’s Believe it or not and Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction? The only problem is, nothing is real in the baseball universe until it actually manifests.

Of the countless examples, yesterday’s case of Josh Hamilton exemplifies perfectly this phenomena. In the morning, Evan Grant wrote that Hamilton and the Rangers were “making progress” on a 4-year, $20M+ AAV contract. Then, by nightfall, Jon Daniels dispelled the day-long rumor. It left the fan base in a temporary limbo trying to decipher the reality. But hey, this is what we wanted. Right?

After all, who more than Hamilton — arguably the most polarizing figure in the sport — satisfies our itch for arriving closer to the truth?

As it stands now, according to reports, the Rangers have their hands wedged deeply in several options, from Zach Greinke to Josh Hamilton, Justin Upton, to James Shields.

I’m still highly skeptical of the Rangers reeling in any more than one of these names while satiating their desire to keep the organization at or around its current $130M budget. After Geovany Soto banked $2.75M and Joakim Soria brought in a two-year, $8M deal, the payroll is already near $115M. A potential addition of Greinke or Hamilton will almost surely push that figure to the $135M range, and that’s before addressing the second catcher spot.

If the interest is legitimate in both Greinke and Hamilton, you have to figure it either means (a) that ownership is willing to make a special exception for one (if not both) of them, (b) that the Rangers actually have more money to spend than they are leading on, or (c) that they are misinforming the media with a bigger plan in mind. I can see both (a) and (b) making more sense than (c), but (c) wouldn’t be all that surprising given the recent history of the franchise.

Of course, as I mentioned, we really just won’t know anything until it actually happens, and, to take it a step further, we’ll probably never know what their motivations are in any case.

If we re-sign Hamilton and don’t move any of Elvis Andrus/Jurickson Profar/Ian Kinsler, we’re looking at a likely outfield logjam featuring all of Hamilton/Kinsler/Cruz/Murphy/Martin/Gentry. So, yeah, that’s probably not gonna happen. One (and probably two) of those players will have to be moved.

If we sign Greinke, the best bet is that we’ll try to acquire another outfielder, perhaps Justin Upton, in which case either Nelson Cruz or David Murphy will likely be moved to shed payroll.

The fact of the matter remains that if the Rangers plan to execute a powerful offseason where they acquire Greinke and Hamilton, the two most dangerous free agents in the class, the 2013 payroll will skyrocket from around $115M where it’s at now, upwards to the $150M territory. I don’t see how this is feasible, but nothing really surprises me anymore.

/Associated Press

Of course, with any contract, no matter how cheap or slam-dunk it appears to be on the surface, there is always some inherent risk. With Soria, who missed nearly all of 2012 due to his second Tommy John procedure, that risk could certainly magnify. However, with the money two other relievers, Brandon League (LAD) and Jonathon Broxton (CIN) have recently hauled in (3 years and $21M), the small figure Soria commands looks like a steal that should add substantial surplus value through 2014, and potentially 2015 if he comes back to full health and regains his former closer dominance.

Although right-handed, Soria has acted as a late-inning terror against left-handed hitting, holding lefties to an anemic .202/.266/.292 triple slash line over the duration of his career. One cause for concern, if we’re looking to nitpick, is that he’s not a pitcher of the ground ball variety (42.5% GB rate), which doesn’t figure to play particularly well in Arlington, but his exceptional strikeout rate (career 9.73/9 IP) and walks rate (2.48/9 IP) tend to play well no matter what the venue is.

All told, Soria isn’t expected to be ready to pitch right out of the gate in 2013, and most figure he’ll likely continue rehabbing through Spring Training into April and possibly May. With such a small sample of pitchers and their variable effectiveness after a 2nd TJ surgery, I’m not sure what exactly we should expect from Soria in 2013. This signing screams value, so it should be geared more towards his control and effectiveness in 2014 and ’15.

If you go back and look at this year’s GM meetings, we were told very little more than there was some groundwork laid and diligence done. Tire kicking if you will. Now there is a possibility that some things that started at those GM meetings could come to fruition during the Winter Meetings. But suddenly all teams are doing what the Rangers have done the last three years. A lot of checking and a lot of misinformation being released to the internets.

What’s up in the air right now? Josh Hamilton, Mike Napoli, Justin Upton, Zack Greinke and David Price. We don’t even know that’s true. On the Upton front, we keep hearing that that Kevin Towers is holding firm on his high price for Upton (Andrus or Profar). It has been my experience as an observer during the last several years that it’s a big game of chicken.  With Josh Hamilton, more and more prognosticators are speculating that Josh will be back with the Rangers. His agent is famously not into letting things play out in the media, but you could sure make a good guess that Josh wants to come back to Arlington and isn’t exactly driving his price way up as of yet. That could happen this week. Mike Napoli appears to have had serious talks with the Red Sox. He wants more years than anyone has offered. Napoli’s story is disappointing in that it doesn’t appear to acknowledge the fact that his price should be lower and even Napoli himself should want a shorter deal to show what he can really do. He’s still banking on his solid year in 2011.

Zack Grienke appears to be in this for the money. You would think that would include the Rangers out. Based on the stories out of Anaheim that Arte Moreno has put the kibosh on spending, they may not play either. The Nationals are interested and so are a couple of lesser market teams. Somebody will probably overpay for Grienke and I hope it’s not the Rangers.

The most intriguing story that has gotten legs in the last two days is the story of the Rays shopping David Price. You would have to think there would be many teams in on this and it becomes a case of who has the best players on the table. The Yankees and Angels don’t have much to offer up and the Dodgers would have to part with some players that they would be probably better off keeping. That leaves the Rangers out in front. But hold on, we have to get back to our main thought process here.

While we need outfield, bullpen and catcher help, I don’t expect much of anything to happen this week. But it’s like one of those crazy domino chain reaction setups. The first team that makes a big move could spark the rest of them to fall.