It's really hard to argue with the way the Florida Marlins do business.
Despite having a payroll consistently at the bottom of baseball, in the last seven seasons, The Marlins have had five winning seasons and won a World Series.
They have a philosophy of building through the draft, develop their own talent, and once that talent gets to a point where they will make serious money, they trade them for more inexpensive talent.
Throughout the years, we have seen Juan Pierre, Josh Beckett, Miguel Cabrera, Mike Lowell, Derek Lee, AJ Burnett, Brad Penny, and Ryan Dempster all come up with the Marlins and all be shipped away in trades or lost in free agency.
Now, after yesterday's meeting between the Marlins and Josh Johnson's agent Matt Sosnick, it looks like Johnson will be the latest Marlins star to be traded away.
According to ESPN's Jerry Crasnick , Sosnick and the Marlins met yesterday to discuss a long-term contract for Johnson. Let's just say the conversation didn't go so well.
"Based on our conversations, there's no chance of doing a long-term deal with the Marlins," Sosnick said. "We made it clear that it was going to be this year or it wasn't going to happen. It was now or never. And the Marlins agreed."
According to Joe Capozzi of the Palm Beach Post, Sosnick was looking for a four-year, $40 million deal similar to the contract (four years, $39 million) that Zack Greinke signed with the Kansas City Royals last year.
This request is not unreasonable considering that at 25-years-old, Johnson is already one of the best young pitchers in the National League. In 2009, Johnson went 15-5 with a 3.23 ERA and had 191 K's in 209 IP.
If you were to ask me, Johnson is already on my shortlist to win the National League Cy Young award in 2010.
So what did the Marlins offer this talented pitcher? Reports have the Marlins offering Johnson a three-year, $22 million deal.
That is a joke. Johnson could make triple that on the open market.
Whether that was the Marlins final offer remains to be seen. Johnson will be a free agent at the end of the 2011 season, and now will be the subject of trade talks moving forward.
If history tells us anything, the Marlins will trade Johnson for some top-level prospects and start the process all over again.
That's the Marlins way.
After all, who can argue with success?
You can follow The Ghost of Moonlight Graham on Twitter @ theghostofmlg
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