When Jim Thome signed with the Philadelphia Phillies, spurning the only team he ever knew and loved, he said it was about winning, plain and simple.

Never mind that the Phillies, who have money to burn and then some, offered maybe $24 million more than Thome's beloved Cleveland Indians. The fact is, though some might say the whole Thome-to-Cleveland thing was just another example of a player shucking loyalty and diving for the biggest paycheck, this was one of the rare ones that was not about the money.

This was about the Indians rebuilding, with no chance to challenge -- even in the mediocre American League Central -- for a couple of years, at the earliest. This was about the Phillies, the most aggressive team in baseball this offseason, signing free-agent third baseman David Bell and going after free-agent lefty Tom Glavine (hard) and wanting Thome so badly they clearly overpaid for him.

And it was about Thome, a good guy evidently willing to gut things out in Cleveland until the Phillies convinced him -- and a lot of other observers -- that a lineup with Jimmy Rollins at the top and Bobby Abreu, Thome and Pat Burrell in the middle could unseat the Atlanta Braves in the NL East.

Classy as always, Thome didn't moan about going to someplace he was wanted. He didn't bad-talk his former employer, the Indians, who now will sink unencumbered into the depths of a full-time rebuilding mode.

"The Indians are going in a way they want to go and I respect that," Thome said at a news conference Tuesday. "I've loved that organization and I still will."

The Phillies will be a much better team than the Indians for the next couple of years and, probably, a lot longer than that. That, you have to believe, is what pulled Thome out of Cleveland and into Philly.

Of course, the extra $24 mil didn't hurt, either.

The baseball offseason is filled with whispers and rumors and a lot of flat-out misinformation. Talking about trades and free agents, in fact, is the great offseason pastime of the national pastime.

The constant chattering comes from all sorts of places. The players. Their agents. The front offices of the clubs. Interested third parties. Educated guessers. People who don't have the foggiest. Often, the talk makes its way into the media.

From there, you can believe what you will.

Everyone has an agenda, of course. The agents and players want to drive up their price, or spur some interest, or keep some interest going, or look good in the public eye.

The clubs want to keep prices down. For the most part, they want to keep their plans close to the vest so no other team can interfere. But, yeah, they want John Q. Seatholder to know that they're on top of things, too.

It's a strange dance of blabber and shut-up, and it's hard to know whom to believe at times. Even the most privileged of information -- say, between a player and his agent -- leaks out sometimes in the worst of ways.

When Colorado's Larry Walker quashed a trade to the Arizona Diamondbacks last month, one of the reasons he gave was based on what his agent, Pat Rooney, told him. Rooney, apparently, informed Walker that the Diamondbacks -- who wanted Walker to defer some of his pay into future years -- might be in some dire financial straits in a few years

"The thing I'm worried about is this deferred money these people have to pay in 10 years, 20 years," Walker told the Rocky Mountain News after he vetoed the deal. "What's going to happen then? We really couldn't get any answers on that."

Well, that set off Arizona owner Jerry Colangelo, who didn't want Walker or Rooney or anyone else suggesting that the Diamondbacks weren't going to be able to meet payroll somewhere down the line. That kind of talk isn't exactly great for business.

So Colangelo threatened to sue Rooney, and Rooney had to issue an apology, and the whole thing could easily have been avoided if either Rooney would have explained it better or if Walker would have just shut up about the whole thing.

Never works that way, though.

The Braves' general manager, John Schuerholz, would rather hire Bobby Valentine as a right-hand man than reveal whom he's talking to about whom when it comes to you-know-what.

His hush-hush style can be a little maddening, and even unsettling, to some. Say, for instance, Glavine, the prized free-agent pitcher.

Glavine has spent his entire baseball career in Atlanta and would, it seems clear, prefer to finish it there. But to get his worth, he has to play the field, and the Phillies and New York Mets have been only too happy to try to lure Glavine away from the Braves.

Now, Glavine's no dummy. In fact, he's probably the most tuned-in player in the game when it comes to baseball's business end. All those years spent as a representative to the players' union has him pretty well informed on how things work.

Still, he has been surprised at the Braves' slow-moving ways and Schuerholz's eerie silence. It even prompted him, last week, to air his grievances to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"It's been 'Pretty much ignore what's out there, don't respond at all,'" Glavine told the paper. "I don't understand it. I'm at a loss for words. If I don't fit into their plans, pick up the phone and tell me. I'm a big boy."

Monday night, Braves president Stan Kasten ran into Glavine, by chance, at the Bruce Springsteen concert in Atlanta's Philips arena. The two -- Kasten and Glavine -- reportedly talked and, on Tuesday, Glavine reportedly met with Schuerholz and others at the Braves' offices.

The lines of communication, it seems, are once again open between Glavine and the Braves. Whether all that talk is good enough to get the lefty back into a Braves uniform … well, we'll just have to wait to see.

John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com.

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