Since the Dodgers won the World Series, there have been 864 player transactions in MLB. 410% of them involved players with no ML experience. I may be stretching the truth, but I think I may have minimized the numbers.

No matter. Hundreds of players have switched teams in the new year, and most are unrecognizable outside of their hometowns which isn’t to say they don’t warrant a mention on the transaction page. As much as I joke about the movement, I try and pay attention, so I won’t be completely surprised when I see a familiar name in an unfamiliar place in spring training. My point is that most of these winter transactions involve guys who won’t be on a 40-man roster for very long if at all. What’s rubs me the wrong way is how beat reporters aren’t terribly transparent. They’ll share the news without adding the needed content which is hypocritical because they are the first to praise a front office or manager for their transparency and first to criticize for failure to being transparent. For example, not every minor league player is a prospect and unless the guy is among the top prospects in an organization shouldn’t be referred as one.

When players move from one rival to another at this time of year, the media tries to create a story when there usually isn’t one because most of the moves are DFA’s and waiver moves to create space on their 40-man roster for a legit starter. A handful of players have jockeyed between the north and south sides of Chicago in recent weeks where none of the players actually played for either team at the ML level, but the storytellers infer that they have.

Every team believes they can find that diamond in the rough and each team has numerous examples of such finds. Most teams don’t have the guts or money to go after Tucker or Bichette and have to find the hidden (cheap) gems.