Something About Birds Preying On Fish (Making Titles Is Difficult).

Just a few months ago, the Red Sox and Dodgers completed a trade that seemed unlikely to be topped, with Boston sending Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto to Los Angeles, who sent James Loney and a slew of prospects back to Beantown. Such a trade meant the Dodgers taking on nearly $250 million in future obligations, and gave the Sox an opportunity to rebuild after an extremely disappointing season. Trades of this caliber are uncommon, but just 3 months after this swap, the Blue Jays and Marlins made a deal that blew this exchange out of the water.

In short: the Marlins will send Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, Emilio Bonifacio, John Buck, and $8 million to Toronto, while the Blue Jays are sending Yunel Escobar, Jeff Mathis, and 5 prospects (Adeiny Hechavarria, Henderson Alvarez, Justin Nicolino, Jake Marisnick, and Anthony Desclafani, all of whom were ranked pretty highly in the Jays' farm system before joining that of the Marlins') down to Miami. It's something we've seen from the Marlins several times in their short history (they were created in 1993); the only difference this time is that it didn't follow a championship. The Fish won the World Series in 1997 and 2003, and both times the owner at the time (Wayne Huizenga after 1997, current owner Jeffrey Loria in 2003) shipped off many of the players that they knew they wouldn't be able to afford in the future. It appears that Loria is willing to do the same after a last place finish as well. On the flip side, Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos finally has some pieces in place that he's been itching to gain for a while. While the Jays do have the capacity for a high payroll, they're not typically a prime free-agent destination, so Anthopoulos normally scours the trade market, and found a happy partner in Loria and GM Mike Hill.

Just a few short weeks after a disappointing season, the Marlins are cleaning shop...again.

Immediately, the Jays are looking a whole lot better.  Are they a contender in baseball's most difficult division? That remains to be seen. Admittedly, they just gained one of the best shortstops in today's game, two top of the rotation starters, as well as another speedy outfielder and a passable backup catcher to young backstops J.P. Arencibia and Travis D'Arnaud. However, they also just got a shortstop who's missed significant time to hamstring injuries, two pitchers who have lost effectiveness steadily every year since 2010, an outfielder accustomed to playing in a platoon, and a catcher who didn't work out well in his first stint with Toronto a few years ago. So it's hard to crown them with the 2013 World Series title before we even hit New Year's, but it also turns the Blue Jays into an incredibly competitive team, if these pickups can not only stay healthy, but properly adjust to the hardest division in the game. A lineup that contains Reyes, Bonifacio, 2-time home run champ Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion (who signed a new contract after a .280/42/110 campaign) and burgeoning Brett Lawrie, is a pretty intimidating and well-rounded lineup. In conjunction to the sluggers, Johnson and Buehrle will give a strikeout-induced boost that a rotation which saw their starters spend the most combined days on the DL of any team in 2012 desperately needs. Again, we don't want to jump to conclusions and say the Jays will bring the Commissioner's Trophy back over the border 20 years after they last did, but to think they haven't gotten infinitely better is simply untrue.

On the other hand (and about 1,500 miles south of Toronto), the Marlins have just hammered in the first nail in the coffin of baseball in South Florida. I strongly believe (as do several of my more famous colleagues) that, in 15 or 20 years, we'll look back at this as the beginning of the end of the Marlins (and the Rays, but that's a story for a different day). Loria has driven an irremovable wedge between the Marlins and the fans by shipping out literally all the players that either made a difference or would have if they had the opportunity to play out the remainder of their contracts. Look no further for a perfect example of the sentiments in South Florida than the one remaining Marlins star's Twitter: Giancarlo Stanton, the young slugging hope for the Fish, tweeted immediately after the announcement of the trade last Wednesday by saying "Alright, I'm pissed off!!! Plain & Simple". This is not the proper way to treat your players, but more importantly, this is not the proper way to treat your fans. Regardless of how Loria and team president David Samson try to spin this, they were fully aware of the response they would get once news broke of the trade. No free agents are going to be enticed to sign with a team that they know full well could flip them at any time, and would do so happily to free up resources to do the same thing several months later. Thankfully, the farm system is starting to look a little better, especially with the prospects that just came down from Toronto, so there will be some bright spots in the future for the team. Overall, though, this makes a strong case for the contraction of yet another team owned by Jeffrey Loria. A relocation for this team isn't entirely out of the picture, if MLB steps in and does the right thing (once again, looking at you, Buddy).

We can't forget the Melkman, who quietly signed with the Jays while approval of this deal was pending.

In the days between the announcement of the trade and the approval from the Most Honorable Commissioner, the Jays pulled off another trick that's a real gamble: signing fallen slugger Melky Cabrera to a 2-year, $16 million deal. We know now that the reigning All-Star Game MVP was taking performance-enhancing drugs, but even if he can't replicate his 2012 numbers, he'll at least be a palatable 4th outfielder and an off-the-bench force to be reckoned with.

So, the offseason has gotten off to a pretty quick start with this trade and signing. While the baseball world continues to reel from this mega-trade, we'll keep our ears to the ground to bring you analysis of the next big thing to happen in this wonderful game we love so dearly.