Selig: Marlins trade "under review"

    Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said he has the Marlins/Blue Jays trade "under review," but industry experts don't believe he'll use his "best interest of baseball" powers to disallow the deal, which has baseball fans -- and non-baseball fans -- seething in South Florida.

    "What I can say to you today is I have the entire matter under review," Selig told reporters following the conclusion of the quarterly owners meetings in Chicago. "That's as much as I have today."

    Selig was making his comments as Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria was slipping out a side door of the hotel where the meetings were held, according to the Chicago Tribune.

    It would be difficult for Selig to kill the trade given that other teams have made similar types of trades in the past -- such as the Red Sox sending Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford to the Dodgers last summer -- without having them overturned by the commisioner.

    "It's a good analogy," Selig said Thursday of comparing the Red Sox trade to the Marlins' sell-off. "That's a fair analogy."

    Sports economist Andrew Zimbalist told The Miami Herald that he could not see Selig invoking his powers to nix the deal because of the precedent it might set. "I do think that the commissioner is always concerned when there's an appearance of a fire sale, or of an owner giving up," said Zimbalist, who wrote the book, In the Best Interests of Baseball: The Revolutionary Reign of Bud Selig. "But I don't think this is a battle Selig would choose to fight. My guess is that the commissioner, although he will have some concerns, will say it's up to the team owner to make that decision."

    Selig, though, is said to be "not happy" about what's taking place with the Marlins and told reporters in Chicago that he spoke with Loria about the trade. Because the 12 players involved in the trade continue to undergo routine physicals, Selig said the deal has not yet been submitted to him for approval.