Miami Marlins and their Public Relations Firm

Sep 28, 2014; Washington, DC, USA; Miami Marlins starting pitcher Henderson Alvarez (37) throws during the second inning inning against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park. Mandatory Credit: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports

Step 3: Take the Net Negative and Turn it into a Positive

Finally, we get to talk about the infamous fire sale trade itself. While the Marlins have sold the perspective that this trade was a major win for the Marlins, it’s not entirely true.

First all of all, the Marlins acquired a guy in Alvarez that posted a 4.85 ERA and a 5.18 FIP. He struck out just 78 hitters in 178 innings of work. While his game seemed like a better fit in Miami, there’s no way the Marlins saw the pitcher they got in 2014 at the time. Saying so would be an utter lie. The same holds true for Anthony DeSclafani, who the Marlins regarded as nothing more than a throw in at the time of the deal.

Also, the team got two backend top 100 prospects in Justin Nicolino and Jake Marisnick. Had they been willing to kick some money in for the contracts they shipped out, they’d likely been able to get a better prospect package. Can you imagine Noah Syndergaard, the top pitching prospect the Mets received for R.A. Dickey, waiting in the minors to pitch for the big league team? We wouldn’t be having any discussions about potentially needing a fifth starter.

On top of that, Michael Jong of Fishstripes took a look at the net WAR totals that were apart of the 2012 Jays-Marlins trade. Guess what, the Marlins don’t come out on top.

"WAR Totals However, just for the record, if you wanted to check out how those players did, we can always tally Wins Above Replacement totals for the last two years. BLUE JAYS, 2013 FWAR RWAR AVG WAR SALARY ($MIL) Jose Reyes 6.5 5.4 6.0 23.0 Josh Johnson 0.5 -1.6 -0.6 11.3 Mark Buehrle 6.2 5.7 6.0 26.0 Emilio Bonifacio -0.4 0.1 -0.1 2.0 Total 12.8 9.6 11.3 62.3 The Jays essentially paid market value for those wins, but most of their losses came from Josh Johnson’s bad 2013. Without Johnson’s struggles, the Jays actually come out just fine, with two players playing at least up to their contract values. MARLINS, 2013 FWAR RWAR AVG WAR SALARY ($MIL) Henderson Alvarez 4.1 6.5 5.3 1.0 Adeiny Hechavarria -1.3 -1.1 -1.2 4.9 Jeff Mathis -0.4 0.0 -0.2 3 Derek Dietrich 0.3 -0.3 0.0 0.8 Jake Marisnick -0.2 0.1 0.0 0.1 Anthony DeSclafani 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 Former player salaries — — — 8.5 Total 2.6 5.3 4.0 18.5"

In the last two years, the only net positive WAR player for the Marlins in that trade has been Henderson Alvarez. Other than that, the Marlins haven’t gotten great production from the other players. But to be fair, it’s harder to judge prospects in this way.

Those numbers also further drive home the point that the Marlins have gotten more out of their core players than any player associated with the Jays trade. The majority of the core was once again put together by Beinfest, as was this trade.

Next: Conclusion?