"The Marlins aren't serious."

"It's just a marketing ploy."

"The SEC investigation has ended the New Marlins before they began."

As those three fake quotes demonstrate, very few people believed the Miami Marlins could do it. The Marlins could never make the free agent kersploosh they were hoping to make. There was no way Jose Reyes or Heath Bell or -- dare I say? -- Albert Pujols or Mark Buehrle will take the Marlins seriously.

Well, Heath Bell took them seriously. And now Jose Reyes -- the best shortstop on the market -- has taken them seriously.

And now that the Albert Pujols age rumor has gone from sure, whatever to ohhhh my, the Marlins could potentially get him with an offer slightly above the current St. Louis Cardinals offer ($200M, 9-year contract).

Oh, and apparently there are three teams left in the Buehrle hunt, and two of them are NL teams. Could the Marlins be about to make another splash?

I, for one, will no longer doubt it.