Cliff Floyd is going back to Montreal, Cincinnati is adding pitching for a wild card run and Florida is retooling yet again.

Coming out of baseball’s All-Star break with two trades, Florida dealt Ryan Dempster, the winningest pitcher in Marlins’ history, to the Reds on Thursday for outfielder Juan Encarnacion, infielder Wilton Guerrero and minor league left-hander Ryan Snare.

Florida then sent the power-hitting Floyd to Montreal along with minor league right-hander Claudio Vargas, Guerrero and about $1.5 million for pitchers Carl Pavano and Graeme Lloyd, infielder Mike Mordecai and minor leaguer Justin Wayne.

“This is not a firesale by any stretch,” Florida president David Samson said. “This is making moves given the realities of the position of our players. … The payroll did not go down. The definition of a firesale is to put your bottom line in a position to cut losses. This does not do this at all.”

Floyd, hitting .287 with 18 homers and 57 RBIs, was the last remaining member of the Marlins’ 1997 World Series championship team who had played with the team in every season since, and is eligible to become a free agent at the end of the season. Florida didn’t want to lose him for nothing and didn’t want to sign him to contract for market value perhaps $10 million annually or more.

“You make trades trying to get better for now and the future, and I think we’ve done that,” Samson said. “To our fans, I say change in baseball happens and it’s good. This is not a white flag by any stretch.”

Surprising Montreal, perhaps playing its final season, began Thursday night 51â2 games behind Arizona, the NL wild card leader. Cincinnati trailed first-place St. Louis by two games in the NL Central and was five games back of the Diamondbacks in the wild card race.

The Expos are owned by the other 29 teams and can’t raise their payroll. On June 27, they acquired pitcher Bartolo Colon from Cleveland.

“To be able to add Bartolo Colon and Cliff Floyd without taking on money, that’s a huge challenge,” Expos general manager Omar Minaya said.

Cincinnati also has payroll limitations. To save money, the Reds traded Guerrero and his $850,000 salary and placed pitcher Seth Etherton, who makes $224,000, on waivers.

Reds manager Bob Boone will start Dempster on Friday against the Astros in place of Joey Hamilton, who will go to the bullpen.

“We hated to give up a player like Encarnacion but we felt with our depth in the outfield and with Junior (Griffey) coming back, we could do this,” Boone said. “There is no question we wouldn’t be where we are without Encarnacion but to get where we need to go, we’ll need the pitching. Ryan chews up a lot of innings.”