Another injury, another offseason, another externally-fueled non-dispute over Bobby Jenks’ girth:

”Bobby is always going to have the problem that when he doesn’t perform, fans think he’s hurt or out of shape,” Guillen said Friday. ”Bobby has to stay in shape if he wants to play for the White Sox.”

And, you know, you could make some perfectly reasonable assertions about the effects of a pitcher’s rotund figure on his long-term prospects, but in Jenks’ case every single one of them falls apart in a hurry. Why? Because the good and bad of Bobby Jenks boils down to the exact same set of facts:

Bobby Jenks is a huge power pitcher.

Unfortunately, Bobby Jenks is also a huge power pitcher.

But beyond that, the more we debate anything about Jenks, the stupider the whole concept becomes: if he loses any tremendous amount of weight, his flamethrower gets turned down to less-than-useful levels; if he doesn’t, he remains an elite closer we all know the Sox will not hold on to; if he goes in between, we’re all probably going to wave goodbye to the big man anyway, but only after a two-year extension lapses and Jenks has inexplicably played out a lowball contract. In either scenario, the only question is whether Jenks nets a decent return, or perhaps something more Swisherian.

But, hey, whatever, access and integrity and all that. It’s the offseason and newsmen need news, and baseball people need baseball, and internet sports-talk-flunkies need internet sports talk, but lacking any of that we turn to the next best thing courtesy of the man on the inside. Must be the hat.