This one went from crazy idea to alarming reality in a hurry. The deal is done, although according to Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times, not yet official -- the Boston Red Sox have unloaded almost $275 million worth of contracts (and three highly-paid baseball players) onto the Los Angeles Dodgers in return for a smattering of prospects.

According to Mike Silverman of the Boston Herald, the Red Sox are saving a ton of money:

The deal will be worth in excess of $275 million to the Red Sox including luxury tax savings and salaries for the remainder of this season and beyond. Over the next six years, the Dodgers will receive $12 million from the Red Sox, with the payments to begin next year.

Departing Boston are Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto, with Allen Webster, Rubby de la Rosa, James Loney, Jerry Sands and Ivan DeJesus Jr. arriving in exchange. It's a bold, brave move by the Dodgers, who are taking on significant risk in acquiring both Crawford and Beckett, both of whom have completely failed to produce this year.

But both were paid like All-Stars because they once were all-stars, and it's that sort of production that Dodgers GM Ned Colletti's hoping to receive. But there are no guarantees that the pair will rebound. Crawford last hit well when he was a member of the Tampa Bay Rays in 2010, and Beckett's excellent 2011 has been sandwiched by two decidedly subpar campaigns.

Not even Gonzalez has been performing as hoped, with a .812 OPS from first base to go along with his $21 million per year salary, a major disappointment after his stellar first season in Boston. Nick Punto is kind of irrelevant, because he is Nick Punto.

The prospects going the other way appear at first glance to be a mixture of 'meh' in Sands and De Jesus and 'pretty good' in de la Rosa and Webster. James Loney is presumably in the trade as some sort of joke.

But the prospects aren't the big story here. This trade is about the Ned Colletti and the Dodgers flashing an incredible amount of cash and the Red Sox falling over themselves to let them spend it on their players. You simply don't see trades like this happen very often, or ever.