From the middle of May to the end of July, trade rumors dominate a lot of the conversation in baseball -- what teams are looking for, which opposing players might be targeted, who might be on the move, the weakest links who might be replaced, the latest swap proposals.
For some players and executives, this can be disruptive and distracting, because with every mention in every tweet or story, there are family members and agents reading and reacting. Even players who choose to wall off social media will be affected, because their emotional defenses are sometimes breached by a text or call from a parent, their spouse or close friends who attack with well-intentioned questions. What do you hear about that potential Indians trade? Will they use you as a closer? Will you get a contract extension?
But even the players and executives most annoyed by the reports and rumors understand and acknowledge that this is just part of the game, something everybody must navigate, partly because it's always helped to drive interest in the sport. The more fans' imaginations are stoked by the possibility of a Manny Machado trade, like last summer, the better it is for the business.
That perspective should be applied to the question of player tampering, which popped up this week when the newest member of the Phillies, Bryce Harper, spoke openly about his intention to recruit Angels outfielder Mike Trout.
"If you don't think I'm going to call Mike Trout in 2020 to have him come to Philly, you're crazy," Harper told radio station 94WIP, after talking about how aggressive Phillies owner John Middleton is.
The dominoes from Harper's words fell quickly, thumping onto the Angels' front office, which has spent the winter assuring its fan base it intends to keep Trout. Angels GM Billy Eppler reportedly contacted Major League Baseball, because Harper's words were a clear violation of the sport's tampering policy. An employee of one organization cannot recruit an employee from another organization without asking permission. So Major League Baseball had to deal with this, and then Trout himself had to address the issue when reporters approached him the next day.
It was all probably time-consuming and bothersome, to varying degrees, for those who had to pick up the pieces of the convention Harper shattered.
And you know what else? It was good for baseball.
In the same way the NBA business model has benefited from speculation about where LeBron James and Kevin Durant will land next, and which superstars might join forces, Harper's comments dominated social media and fan conversation at a time when baseball is looking for more social media connectivity. Commissioner Rob Manfred spoke last year about Trout's star power, and Harper probably did as much or more to raise Trout's profile a notch or two than any sit-down interview could ever do.
The issue of where Trout is going to play after his current contract expires in 2020 rocketed from DEFCON 5 to 2 and will undoubtedly be one of the dominant stories that will hover over the sport.
And here's the thing everybody in the game already knows: Violations of baseball's tampering rules occur all the time. Player-to-player tampering is like baseball's version of jaywalking. Opposing players recruit one another constantly, jokingly or not so jokingly. In conversations at All-Star Games, or over dinners, or in text messages, or by batting cages, they talk about the possibility of playing together, they sort of scheme about playing together.
Some executives will get involved as well. It wasn't long ago that I heard how one GM asked a player on his team to call a superstar player on another team -- knowing the two players were very close friends -- to ask what sort of contract the superstar wanted in his impending free agency. The GM was weighing whether to trade for the superstar and perhaps sign him immediately after the trade. (By the way, no such deal or signing occurred.)
You can understand why MLB would come down hard on any executive proven to have engaged in that kind of tampering.
But for players like Harper? Is it really that big of a deal?
Why not make the most of it and allow players to do their thing -- talk about wanting to add specific players from other teams, in interviews or on social media? Why not simply exclude players from the tampering rules and allow the sport to prosper from something you know is inherent, rather than discouraging it?
Sure, there would be some chaos, the same kind of chaos that occurs in the days before the trade deadline. It would be disruptive; it would be distracting.
But imagine the conversation that would pop up if, before this year's trade deadline, Alex Bregman tweeted that he'd love to see the Astros get Madison Bumgarner in a deal. Imagine the response if Aaron Judge used Instagram to lobby Trout to sign with the Yankees. Under the current rules already routinely ignored by players, MLB is required to play the get-off-my-lawn administration role and issue warnings and fines, when there's probably every reason for them to want to foster the kind of dialogue that fans love or love to hate.