Gone Fishin: Marlins Make Blockbuster Deal

In the aftermath of yesterday's blockbuster deal between the Marlin's and Blue Jays baseball fans seem to have mixed reactions about why exactly the trigger was pulled?  The details of the deal were as follows:

Blue Jays receive: 
SS Jose Reyes
RHP Josh Johnson
LHP Mark Buehrle
INF Emilio Bonifacio
C John Buck
and $4 million

Marlins receive: 
SS Yunel Escobar
INF Adeiny Hechavarria
RHP Henderson Alvarez
LHP Justin Nicolino
OF Jake Marisnick
and RHP Anthony DeSclafani

My initial reaction to this trade was, "Why would the Marlins spend all that money in the 2011 off-season building up their team with these expensive big name players, just to trade them all away a year later?"  However after having nearly 24 hours to process it, it makes a lot more sense to me.  The 2012 Marlins were looking to rush in their new, state of the art stadium, with a bang.  What better way to do that than bring in some big name players to pick up a recently struggling ball club out of their slump and make them more competitive, so fans will have all the more to attend games and cheer their little hearts out.  Good philosophy, one would suspect.  However the exact opposite happened.  The Marlins struggles all year to find a solid identity, which was hurt even more by inappropriate comments by their now former skipper Ozzie Guillen in regards to supporting the work of Castro in Cuba.  Nonetheless the Marlins finished the season in dead last in their division with an overall record of 69-93.  Something wasn't right with that.  The initial concept was smart but the final result was a disaster. 

The bottom line here is fans and good owners who aren't cheap and afraid to spend to produce a winning product, want wins.  Action had to be taken.  The Marlins saw the opportunity and jumped at it in hopes of getting significantly younger, giving them a potentially bright future, and freeing up nearly $80 million in cap space.  The average age of the players the Marlins received in the trade is 23, with just one of them in their 30's, SS Yunel Escobar. 

The Blue Jays on the other hand will inherit that $80 million in contracts and put themselves in position with some new big name stars to add to succeed in an already competitive AL East. 

That however is another discussion, and one that we will not see play out until next fall if the Blue Jays make the playoffs.  One thing though is for certain, and that is simply that the Marlins will have a completely new look come opening day 2013.  Whether or not their clearinghouse and fresh start pays off may take years to actually know.  But the decision as a whole was one that I think says a lot about the Marlins organization and their dedication to building a winning product.  They gave up what most would consider to be good talent, but they were willing to make changes to a system that obviously was not working.  I applaud that.  Marlins fans everywhere should be happy their organization is willing to change things to find success.