Blue Jays, Marlins Complete Blockbuster Trade

The Blue Jays and Marlins pulled off a blockbuster deal Tuesday night, changing the landscape of the AL East.

The Jays will get Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, Jose Reyes, Emilio Bonifacio, and John Buck from the Marlins, essentially removing all of the major free agent deals left from Miami's offseason splurge. The Jays will send Yunel Escobar, Adeiny Hechavarria, Henderson Alvarez, and Justin Nicolino back to Miami in return.

Of course, it's hard not to compare this deal to the one the Red Sox made just months ago, sending Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, and Nick Punto to the Dodgers for, primarily, Rubby De La Rosa, Allen Webster, and Jerry Sands. Ideally Marlins fans will call this the "John Buck deal," if any remain in 24 hours.

The upshot of all this is that the Jays are better. A lot better. Buehrle isn't fantastic, but he's a solid middle-rotation pitcher. Jose Reyes, even in his current state, is better than Yunel Escobar and comes with a ton of upside. And then there's Josh Johnson, the real star of the deal for the Jays if he can bounce back from a bit of a disappointing season to his former heights. In return they lose Henderson Alvarez--impressively young, if not exactly impressive--the wild card of Yunel Escobar, a decent shortstop prospect in Hechavarria, an interesting young pitcher in Nicolino, and very likely any real ability to complain about AL East payrolls.

No major league talent out, plenty of it in. Only time will tell if this was a good move for the Blue Jays, but at the very least for the immediate future the Jays have made this already difficult division that much more ridiculous.

Update: Jake Marisnick apparently also heading to the Marlins. There's a top-100 name for you. Toronto's farm taking a significant hit.

Update the second: And Jeff Mathis. And the Rogers Centre Hotel. And Ace the Blue Jay, Alex Anthopoulos, three lucky fans, and a large order of poutine. The Mathis bit for real, though.