The phone rings in Neal Huntington's office.

Brian Cashman: Uh, hi, is this Neal?

Neal Huntingon: Yup.

BC: Don't you, like, have a secretary or something?

NH: Dude, I don't even have a bullpen. What's up?

BC: Well, we just picked up Mark Teixeira, so we really don't need Nick Swisher AND Xavier Nady and I kinda thought, that, you know ...

NH: That'd I'd just give them to you in return for Paul Maholm and Nate McLouth and maybe if I haggled really hard you'd include Melky Cabrera?

BC: Did you just read my mind? Because that's incredible. It's like ... wow. What are you even doing in a front office. You should have your own TV show or something.

NH: Excessively complimenting me is not going to make this trade happen.

BC: What is?

NH: Uh, remove Swisher and Nady from the deal, add Jackson and Betances, and make it for McLouth OR Maholm and we'll talk.

BC: You're much meaner than the guy on The Mentallist. Call me back when you feel like taking overrated, overpaid players in return for the only talented players you have on your roster.

Click.

OK, so maybe that's not how this happened. But it's pretty much how it went down in my head.