Sports

Blue Jays load up on talent, but AL East’s not won in November

Toronto’s acquisition of Jose Reyes, but crowning them AL East champions in November is a knee-jerk reaction, writes The Post’s Joel Sherman. (Getty Images)

The initial reaction to the mega-trade all but completed Tuesday between Toronto and Miami was that the top of the AL East got even more crowded. The Yankees are suddenly going to have to contend with a Blue Jays squad that entered go-for-it mode by loading up on star power and payroll.

But that is always the knee-jerk response — those who spend the most and add the biggest names are dubbed the champions of winter. Yet how often do they become the actual, you know, champions?

The Marlins won accolades last year with the money splurge on Heath Bell, Mark Buehrle and Jose Reyes. One last-place finish later and now all three are gone, Buehrle and Reyes part of a blockbuster to the Blue Jays that is likely to include at least a dozen players and become official Wednesday.

This can all work gloriously for Toronto. Reyes, as any Mets fan knows, is uber-talented and could top a scary lineup with Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Brett Lawrie and Colby Rasmus. Josh Johnson and Buehrle could bring 400 high-end innings and much-needed stability to the Blue Jays’ rotation. Emilio Bonifacio is a useful, speedy component, and John Buck at least a backup catcher.

But Reyes and his dubious legs are about to play home games on an artificial surface with five years at $92 million left on his contract. Buehrle and, especially, Johnson are injury red flags who are no sure things transitioning to the AL East.

The Blue Jays acted boldly because they sensed a vulnerable AL East with the Yankees having gone conservative with an eye on getting under $189 million in 2014, the Red Sox coming off a 2012 meltdown, the Rays always coping with payroll concerns and the Orioles having to prove they were not a one-year blip.

Toronto has garnered praise for accumulating talent the past few years and one NL executive said of Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos, “he was tired of asset collecting and finishing fourth. He wanted to make a difference. Alex got tired of building his core and wanted to compete.”

The Marlins, meanwhile, will be looked at as big losers for this salary dump. And their owner, Jeffrey Loria, and team president David Samson have earned that distinction. They ran a sham on Miami, got shallow politicians to approve a stadium mainly built on taxpayers’ backs at a time in American history when that was more problematic than ever. They did this by running a con that they were committed long term to constructing not just a gleaming money grab of concrete and steel, but a long-term winner.

Their commitment to that concept lasted less than a year. The disassembling began with in-season trades of Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante, continued with the dumping of Bell, and now has its coup de grace by moving $163.75 million of future salaries.

Because the deals for Buehrle and Reyes were so heavily back-loaded, there was always concern the Marlins were making a quick attempt to win/amp attendance and would dump out as soon as possible if the winning did not materialize. But this was super fast. The organization had done fire sales twice before, but at least won championships before each of those.

There are questions if this is a prelude to a team sale, whether baseball can survive in south Florida and if another free agent will ever trust this ownership enough to sign there.

Yet this was a deconstruction the Marlins needed to enact. Their roster, as constructed, was a science project gone wrong. Now they have created a layer of young talent with all of these trades — in this latest deal, executives particularly like center fielder Jake Marisnick (some Jayson Werth comps) and lefty Justin Nicolino, and anyone who saw Henderson Alvarez pitch against the Yankees knows he has a big arm.

For now, Yankees fans can calm down — the Marlins did not vacate all of this money to clear room for Alex Rodriguez and they are showing no inclination to trade Giancarlo Stanton, even if teams such as the Yankees and Rangers would give up truckloads to get him.

Instead, the Yankees will have to keep their eyes on Toronto and see if a supposed winter winner will still be winning in summer.