The Internet can be a dangerous place during the Hot Stove League. Anyone with a computer and an idea can start a rumor, and it’s tough to know what information is reliable and accurate and what is not. Even established reporters — Jon Heyman comes to mind — tend to tie teams to many available big names, and we’re left trying to sort out noise from reality.

Late last night, we came upon an update on Twitter from someone who calls herself TheSportsDiva23 and with the initials SW. This person says she covers the Yankees but cannot reveal her name. After an extensive look back through her 2400 updates, we felt comfortable enough mentioning this update not so much to report it as a bona fide rumor but to use it as a starting point for a discussion on Derek Jeter.

First, the rumors: According to two posts on this person’s Twitter timeline (1, 2), the Yankees may be gearing up to offer Derek Jeter a three-year deal worth $60 million. Supposedly, this deal would be wrapped up before Thanksgiving.

We don’t know if this deal would supplant the final year of Jeter’s current contract and extend him for two more seasons at $20 million per. We don’t know if this deal would be a three-year extension to carry Jeter through 2013, his age 39 season. We don’t, in fact, know if we should even trust this source at all.

So then why even mention it all, regular readers of RAB might wonder. After all, we tend to shy away from rumors we don’t believe have legs. Now, this anonymous person’s claim may not have legs, but to extend Derek Jeter is a question we’ve pondered this season. In early September, we noted that the Yanks planned to take care of Jeter but probably wouldn’t — and shouldn’t — extend him until after his contract runs out.

I still believe that the Yanks should wait until after next year to extend Derek Jeter. After all, as a 35-year-old short stop — the oldest player to win a World Series at that position in over half a century — Jeter is ripe for more money than he deserves. He just set the Yanks’ career hits record, and he should place in the top five in the AL MVP voting. Jeter’s agent should want to sign that extension now while the Yanks should want to wait a year.

But let’s say the Yanks would rather not allow their captain to touch free agency and don’t want a lame duck season swirling over their heads. Is a $60 million offer that covers the 2010-2012 period reasonable? For Jeter, those seasons are going to be his ages 36-38 years, but he probably won’t readily move off of short stop. Whether that is a liability or a benefit for the Yanks will depend entirely on Derek’s offense prowess.

Since 2006, Derek has earned a per annum salary of over $20 million. The Yanks, in fact, have doled out approximately $85.4 million over the last four seasons to their captain while getting back $88.8 million in production, according to Fangraphs. To continue to pay him a lofty salary would be to pay him for services rendered and not, at this point in his career, expected return and value. Considering who he is, the Yanks can get away with overpaying Jeter if it comes to it.

And so we’re left with a rumor from an unnamed source we are led to believe is a Twitter account of someone close to the Yankees. If it’s real, indications suggested that it could be Suzyn Waldman; if it’s fake, well, that’s quite an undertaking. Either way, we can still consider if the franchise should extend Jeter now or wait until after next year.

In the end, I take the rumor with a giant grain of salt and assume, until we start to hear otherwise, that it has no legs. But those in charge of the Yankees are probably giving some thought to re-upping with Derek Jeter now. His asking price might be too high, but he’s going to get overpaid no matter what. Better, perhaps, to get it over with.

At some point soon — hopefully today because I’ll be there — Derek Jeter will become the Yanks’ all-time leader on the hit list. In a few weeks, we’ll hear rumblings of a potential MVP award. In a few years, he’ll reach that 3000-hit plateau and possibly even that 3500-hit mark. Along the way, he’ll hit his 250th home run and score his 2000th run.

There is, of course, one monumental event that is going to arrive before a few of those milestones: Derek Jeter’s ten-year contract will expire. Make no mistake about it; this is a big deal.

Over the last few weeks, Joe and I have spent some time exploring Jeter’s contract status. While Jeter hasn’t been saying much about his new deal, I speculated that the Yanks might break with tradition and sign Derek to an extension this year. Such a move would cut off the media circus surrounding Derek the Free Agent before it could begin. Late on Friday, though, Joe noted that multiple reports indicate the Yankees will wait until after 2010 to re-up with Jeter.

Today, Bob Klapisch introduces a few new elements to the mix as he asks one very big question: While the Yankees, in the words of Jayson Stark, will probably “take care of” Jeter, what will happen when and if Derek asks for a four-year, $100-million extension? In a piece high on superlatives, Klapisch writes that Jeter has “a larger footprint than anyone in the organization.” Since 1995, Derek Jeter has been a Yankee, and since shortly thereafter, the two — Yankee baseball and Derek Jeter — have been synonymous. Jeter, says Klapisch, knows this and knows what it can mean for him:

Jeter has made it clear he’d like to finish his career in pinstripes. The Yankees certainly want him back when his current deal expires after 2010. Everyone agrees on that much. But after earning $41 million in 2009-10, Jeter will be in no mood for a pay cut, not after seeing A-Rod awarded a 10-year, $275 million deal after the 2007 season.

How much will Jeter be worth at age 37 is a question the Yankee hierarchy doesn’t dare discuss publicly. No team in the last 50 years has won a championship with a shortstop that old, although that won’t deter either side from finding middle ground. That is, unless Jeter wants to stay at the position into his 40s and is thinking of earning $25 million a year.

The Yankees are bracing for the possibility that Jeter could indeed ask for, say, $100 million over four years, knowing the captain would have enormous leverage in the talks. That’s why management won’t even begin to discuss a new contract this winter; in the wake of an MVP-caliber season, the cost would be prohibitive.

Instead, the Yankees will run the table on Jeter’s existing deal and hope common sense prevails in 2011. One industry analyst says, “let’s see if (Jeter) realizes the market has come down” since A-Rod’s record-setting contract.

Giving Jeter a contract extension after his 2009 campaign would be, simply put, a bad business decision. The Yankees would be paying Jeter going forward for what he has accomplished this year, and while Jeter appears ageless now, he is more likely to decline over the next five years than he is to duplicate this season’s numbers. So the Yankees will wait.

Derek, too, will wait. He’ll wait for the money that he thinks should be his. He’ll wait for the offer that should head his way. In the end, Derek Jeter will resign with the Yankees. He can’t really go play anywhere else, and the Yankees can’t afford to see him leave. How much it will cost though to keep him is anyone’s guess. I fear that $100 million contract, but it won’t be too much less than that.