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July 20, 2012

BP Unfiltered

Three Potential Reasons for Today's 10-Player Trade

by Larry Granillo

The Blue Jays and Astros executed one of the least exciting ten-player trades in sports history last night. With Brandon Lyon, J.A. Happ, and Francisco Cordero the biggest names involved, there's a lot of head-scratching going around the baseball world today as to why such a big swap of players was necessary. After giving it some thought, these are the most likely reasons I could come up with for the deal between Toronto GM Alex Anthopoulos and Houston GM Jeff Luhnow:

1. Anthopoulos's rich uncle just died and he's now involved in a "Brewster's Millions"-style plot to unload the entire 40-man roster before the end of the month. He has already turned seven players into three. Soon enough, those three players will be traded to Kansas City for Yuniesky Betancourt, who will then be cut. The Blue Jays will announce it by mailing a letter stamped with the Inverted Jenny.
2. Anthopoulos was trying to complete his 2012 Topps team set of the Astros, so he called Luhnow to see what cards he had available. The deal was made using their card collection and the latest issue of Beckett. Someone filled out the wrong paperwork, however, and neither GM wanted to admit the mistake.
3. Luhnow and Anthopoulos are in a secret society that collects employees with the most interesting last names. The trade came about when Anthopoulos realized he was missing an "exotic animal" from his collection while Luhnow valued a little "Co-Co".