Today in Bluebird Banter History: The Big Trade

So a year ago today....it started like this:

Source: #BlueJays on verge of acquiring Josh Johnson from #Marlins. Deal could be even larger than that.

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) November 13, 2012

And things went pretty wild from there. We had 1593 comments in the first of the trade threads.

It took awhile but we finally got the details of the trade:

As it stands now, the Marlins will send right-hander Josh Johnson, left-hander Mark Buehrle, shortstop Jose Reyes, outfielder Emilio Bonifacio, and catcher John Buck for shortstop Yunel Escobar, infielder Adeiny Hechavarria, right-hander Henderson Alvarez, left-hander Justin Nicolino, outfielder Jake Marisnick, catcher Jeff Mathis, and right-hander Anthony DeSclafani.

Which was pretty much it, other than a little cash that came our way.

The "Do you approve of this trade?" poll came out 88% yes, 4% no and 8% unsure (damn fence sitters).

It didn't turn out as great as we hoped.

• Josh Johnson was either terrible or hurt. He was so bad that we didn't give him a qualifying offer.
• Mark Buehrle started the season awful, hitting bottom with a 7.02 ERA after his May 6th start. He got better after that, with ERAs of 3.50 in June, 2.75 in July and 2.70 in August but we dig too deep a hole.
• Jose Reyes wrecked his ankle on April 12th, missed over two months of baseball and, when he came back, seemed afraid to push off on that ankle for the longest time, but he did finish off the season well.
• Emilio Bonifacio was awful, both defensively and offensively and was traded to the Royals for the change they found in their couch cushions. Then he started to play much the way we hoped he would.
• John Buck was included in the trade for R.A. Dickey. He wasn't very good, with the Mets, but then a better version of not very good than what we got out of J.P. Arencibia.

The guys we sent away?

• Yunel Escobar was flipped to the Rays for Derek Dietrich. Yunel hit 256/.332/.366, not great, but he played his usual terrific defense.
• Henderson Alvarez went 5-6, with a 3.59 ERA in 17 MLB starts, including the no-hitter he threw in his last start.
• Adeiny Hechavarria was terrible with the bat, hitting .227/.267/.298 in 148 games. His defense wasn't great either, he had a -10.0 UZR/150.
• Jake Marisnick played 40 games with the Marlins, hitting .183/.231/.248. In 67 Double-A games he hit .294/.358/.502.
• Anthony DeSclafani split time between A and Double-A, putting up a 9-6 record, 2.65 ERA in 25 starts.
• Justin Nicolino also split time between A and Double-A, going 8-4, with a 3.11 ERA in 27 starts.

The trade didn't turn us into the contender that we had hoped it would. I don't know that we should have seen what was coming. Reyes screwing up his ankle was bad bad luck. And I don't see any reason we should have thought Bonifacio would have been that terrible. And Mark Buehrle has been a slow starter in the past but nothing near as extreme as this year.

I do wonder if something should have been noticed in the physical that the team gave Josh Johnson. He never seemed to be right from day one, you have to wonder if there was something the team should have seen. But, beyond wondering about that, I don't know that we should have seen the coming disaster one year ago. Oh, I miss those days of happiness.

The trade made the off-season great fun for us. It is too bad that it didn't make the season fun.