Or, neither one blinks and you lose the 3rd and the 4th.
You assume. You hope. You don't know if he will or not.
"Cutting nose to spite face" picture goes here.
Or, maybe Staios read the market and the cards in his hand and decided this was as good as he was getting, and something > nothing.
And, again, you run the risk that Florida decides to go shop elsewhere and you end up with nothing.
But, I've shown those other GMs I'm not going to get bent over, that'll teach them!
Does it, though? It's "easier" in the same way baseball teams talking to Scott Boras or football teams talking to Drew Rosenhaus find it "easier." They know going in, the ask is going to be astronomical and the agent is going to withhold the player if the demand isn't met. Great for the agent when it happens, but it causes a lot of teams to steer clear because they don't want the headache.
Let's say every time Hughes hits it's a home run. How many strikeouts are there along the way? How many other GMs, when they go shopping, look at him and say "you know what, I have a need and I could fill it by talking to him but holy f*** that's going to be a real PITA, I'm not spending weeks on that, I can fill it just as easily somewhere else for less, without the drawn-out process?" Great to pat yourself on the back and say "I'm winning every trade, and I'm winning them big," not so great when you miss other opportunities to improve your organization along the way and don't build goodwill with others that lays the foundation for you to win trades later on.
But, if winning trades is the be-all, end-all, ... I say go for it. What's the worst that can happen?