Blue Jays: Toronto/Miami Trade, Reviewed Eight Years Later

Conclusion

Now with eight full seasons behind us, I wanted to look at who ended up as the winner of this trade.  Did the Blue Jays get fair value for giving up so many prospects?  The first thing I had to do was start cutting out pieces of the trade that I found were players we didn’t need to analyze too much.  Jeff Mathis and John Buck are the easiest players to remove in the deal, the second is Yunel Escobar.  Escobar was an addition by subtraction due to his recent problems and with Reyes coming over the team needed to get rid of him.

I am left with the trade looking like:
To Toronto: Jose Reyes, Emelio Bonifacio, Mark Buerhle and Josh Johnson
To Miami: Adeiny Hechavarraia, Jake Marisnick, Henderson Alvarez, Anthony DeScalafni and Justin Nicolino

The Blue Jays ended up getting 97 starts over three season, 40 wins and an All-Star Appearance out of Mark Buehrle over three seasons.  He immediately becomes the best player and performer of the exchange.

Even with all the frustration that Jose Reyes brought, he hit 97 extra base hits with 61 stolen bases and had a slash line of .289/.334/.404, which is a pretty impressive leadoff hitter.  Reyes becomes the second best player in the deal.

The rest of the players that went to the Marlins, outside of one great season by Henderson Alvarez have not proved to be anything more than middle to back of the rotation pitchers, and replacement-level positional players.

Almost a decade later, in my view the Blue Jays won this deal even with the unfortunate injury to Josh Johnson and the struggles of Emilio Bonifacio.

What is your view?  Do you think the Blue Jays traded too many prospects in this deal?  Which prospect was your favourite on the day of the deal?