Please, Giants, give us a rumor

Early in the offseason, the Giants were in on or at the fringes of just about every free agent out there. Then they got a couple of those free agents, and that was great! Way to spend money to improve the team, Giants. That's how it's supposed to work!

But the rumors have dried up; the hot stove has cooled to a lukewarm stove, which then cooled to "forgot to preheat the oven," and yes, I know that stoves and ovens are different things, but you try coming up with a better metaphor. Or, actually, don't. I don't need you showing me up.

But we're at the point of the offseason where we're grasping at sea anemones in the hopes that there's a straw hiding there. We'll take anything. No matter how tenuous the connection, no matter how untrustworthy the source, no matter the names attached or money floated, we're interested. It's something to talk about and dream about and mentally move money around and project the team in five years, which'll just be an odd year anyway, so it's not like it matters. But it's something, and right now, you have to take all the something you can.

Dexter Fowler was at the Warriors game last night, and that doesn't necessarily mean anything. But it also doesn't necessarily not mean something. What is meaning, anyway? How can we tell when the quotidian minutiae of life gives way to the first rumblings of an event destined to shake us to our core? Or, to put it another way:

Dex in the Bay Area....Giants want a LF who can play CF...shall we connect the dots? https://t.co/mfV1uImRw4

— Andrew Baggarly (@extrabaggs) January 5, 2016

There are a lot of reasons that Dexter Fowler might have been at a Warriors game that don't involve him signing a contract within the next few hours. Maybe Steph Curry invited him out for a game. Maybe he was hammering out a deal with Billy Beane. Maybe he was just in town to visit the Giants and he's done that for 10 other teams. Maybe Fowler's agent knew that the White Sox GM loves Mo Speights, and so he set up a meeting in person to try to make something work. There are myriad maybes, and just the one lonely fact.

But gosh, that fact is fun. They could put Fowler in center! Or Pagan will stay in center every game he plays, but in all the other games, they could put Fowler in center (this is much more plausible). Maybe it would be a signing for 2017 as much as 2016, finding a decent center fielder and locking him up before having to face the Saharan-desert-in-high-summer that is the 2016 free agent market. Would Pagan or Fowler end up at leadoff? Could this set up a Pagan trade? Pagan for Melvin Upton, who says no? Well, okay, I do, and you do, and the Giants do, but besides that, who says no? Makes you think, right?

Really, all I want is for the Giants to continue entertaining me throughout more of the offseason. Just look at the 49ers: sure, their actual games are dull and boring, and they're almost certainly damaging to the health of their players, but at least they spend their offseason being a trainwreck in order to give me something during the months when they're not playing. The Giants can be entertaining by being the opposite of that: a competent, well-run organization that in interested in many paths to improving the team (As a side benefit, this would make the 49ers even funnier by comparison, thus making me even happier).

C'mon, Giants. Give me a rumor. Let it be known that you're interested in Dexter Fowler, but not at that price. I want Baggs to say that he's heard you've pivoted to Alex Gordon. Kick the tires on Gerardo Parra. Just do anything, because otherwise I'm stuck with my own thoughts, and nothing could be worse than that.