Hunter Manchak is a lifelong baseball fan with a weakness for the word 'upside.' He is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Sports Business Management from New York University.

Previous Columns: A Review of the San Francisco Giants Stars of the Future The Marlins- The Team to Watch Which NL Central Team is Poised to Compete Complete list

Baseball history is littered with myriad trades that in hindsight have proved to be quite lopsided. The most agonizing of such deals tend to involve a veteran rental going to a team with post-season aspirations in exchange for a player with high upside but little or no Major League experience, but who eventually goes on to become Jeff Bagwell or Pedro Martinez (we'll hold off on throwing Scott Kazmir into this group, at least for the time being).

Whenever mid- or off-season trade rumors are bandied about, these names serve as cautionary tales to otherwise not-so-cautious General Managers looking to add the dreaded "final piece" to a championship puzzle. In the end, it's often easier to be the employed World Series-less GM than the jobless one who went for it all.

Time was, the debate was essentially performance versus potential. That is, will the major league player I am receiving help me enough to justify forgoing the potential offered by the prospect I'm giving up. Most smart general managers reasoned that it would only make sense to give up a top prospect if the player or players you got back in the trade would help push your team to a playoff run or a realistic shot at a title.

In the past decade or so, the ever-increasing salary gap between rookies and veterans has added another wrinkle to the whole process. Instead of gambling on one or two players, teams have become increasingly content to err on the side of inexperience, taking chances on younger players (and paying them relative slaves wages in the process) rather than renting veterans for a year or less, only to lose them in free agency.

Take the case of Miguel Cabrera: even if he goes to arbitration over the next two years, he'll likely only have been paid about $30 million over the first six-plus years of Major League service -a steal by any metric. For any team-especially a small market one -to be able to pay such a dominant player such pittance is a nuance of baseball's Collective Bargaining Agreement that teams have long gladly exploited, and for good reason.

From 2000-2007 only one top ten player from each year's Baseball America top 100 prospect list was dealt during the season or off-season in which they made the list. The one player was Hanley Ramirez, ranked #10 by BA in 2005 and dealt by the Red Sox in the '05 off-season for Josh Beckett. Other highly touted prospects were part of blockbuster trades, but in most cases, the players had already spent at least a year or two at the Major League level over which time their team was presumably able to better gauge the players' potential.

Fast forward to this off-season. In the span of a couple of weeks, we've seen the Tigers give up two top 10 prospects, Cameron Maybin (#6 BA 2007) and Andrew Miller (#10) for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis. The Devil Rays parted ways with Delmon Young (#3), a former number one overall pick whose star, by all accounts, is still very bright. Simultaneously, the Johan Santana sweepstakes has seen a number of A+ quality names thrown into the mix like Phil Hughes (#4) and a slew of others who may very well be on the '08 list, including Joba Chamberlain, Ian Kennedy, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Clay Buchholz.

So what has brought about this seeming sea change in the attitudes of GMs across baseball? Is this a trend we can expect to continue, or is this year a special case? And most importantly, does dealing high ceiling prospects -even for low risk, proven veterans -make sense?

The easiest way to explain this turn of events is that players like Johan Santana and Miguel Cabrera are simply extraordinary cases: each is already remarkably accomplished, appears destined for historical greatness, has few injury concerns, and had come up with a small-market franchise with little chance of World Series success in the short term.

While this is almost surely the case, it ignores the economic changes that have taken place in the sport. Indeed, with revenues reaching $6 billion in 2007 (the latest in a string of record takes by the sport) its easy to see why teams (at least those in larger media markets) would be a little less concerned about excising rents from younger players.

In addition, with the rise of statistical analysis and of better and more efficient scouting it's becoming somewhat easier to quantify the risks a team is actually dealing when considering such a trade. It seems the odds of even the best prospects becoming stars is far less than has long been popularly held (as the great Tim Marchman very ably discussed this week). As such, GMs -particularly those with a history of success on their side -have attacked the opportunity to add low-risk All-Star caliber players to their roster at the cost of even the best prospects.

Although such trades can often not be fully evaluated for many years, in appears that both teams in the recent Detroit Tigers-Florida Marlins deal both made out quite well. For the Tigers, in getting Cabrera they add youth and an MVP-caliber bat to an already potent but aging lineup. Although Maybin is highly regarded by everybody and showed some flashes with the team in '07, the emergence of Curtis Granderson last season must have made it much easier to deal Maybin. The two have similar strengths and weaknesses and Granderson has already proved his baseball worth in the bigs. In swapping lefties Willis for Miller, the Tigers lose upside but gain experience. Dontrelle should be a hit in Detroit if he's not spun off in another deal.

In their short history, the Marlins have, to their credit, been a remarkably cyclical team-great at blowing things up and reconstructing from scratch. With this deal, the last vestiges of their 2003 World Series are gone and their third rebuilding effort is in full effect. It was clear that the Marlins weren't signing Cabrera to a long-term deal and Willis had started a steep decline for two seasons. To have gotten two stud prospects in return is probably the best the team could have hoped for.

Going forward, the team has its two most important defensive positions taken care of with Ramirez and Maybin and has a potential Randy Johnson-in-the-making in Miller. The other players in the deal, catcher Mike Rabelo, and pitchers Eulogio De La Cruz, Dallas Trahern and Burke Badenhop don't appear to be anything too special, though De La Cruz does have a mean fastball and offers some upside.

The other winner in the deal is clearly the baseball fan. The Tigers become the fifth dominant team in the American League, with a real chance to do something exciting in the Central and even win it all. In addition, we'll all be treated to the inevitable Magglio-Miguel perm-off, which at Christmastime, is about the best present anyone could ask.

Talk this over on the lovemyteam.com message board >>

Write to Hunter Manchak If you'd like a response to your email, please be sure to include your email address or other contact information