Giants Out on Giancarlo Stanton Too
The Marlins struck two deals to trade Giancarlo Stanton and most of his remaining contract, one with the St. Louis Cardinals, and the other with the San Francisco Giants. Earlier today, the Cardinals announced that they were out of the running, and now, the Giants have made the same concession.
#SFGiants also announce they are out on Stanton.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 8, 2017
Stanton and his representatives likely imagined this exact scenario when they signed a long-term deal with Jeffrey Loria, knowing that the day would come when the Marlins decided that they only really wanted those first few cheap years, not the expensive ones at the end of the deal. Getting a full no-trade clause gives Stanton the ability to decide exactly where he wants to play, and apparently, it isn’t San Francisco either.
While there are some attractive things about the franchise, it’s not an entirely surprising decision. AT&T Park is one of the worst places to hit in all of baseball, and if Stanton is planning on opting out in three years, he probably stands a better chance of getting another raise if he doesn’t have to remind every other team about park effects as the primary part of his pitch. The Giants also were atrocious last year, and even with Stanton, would have been a fringe Wild Card contender, well behind the Dodgers in the NL West pecking order.
Plus, growing up in LA, I’m guessing he didn’t have the fondest feelings about the Giants as a kid. So when the arch rival of the team you grew up rooting for wants to trade for you, coming off a season where they posted the second-worst record in baseball, it’s probably not that appealing of an offer. And since Stanton has every right to dictate where he’s traded, there’s no real reason for him to settle for an option he doesn’t prefer, since he doesn’t have to.
For the Marlins, this is nothing short of a disaster. The teams that Stanton has reportedly indicated he will accept a trade to — the Dodgers, Yankees, Astros, and Cubs — can all win without him, and all of them are probably eying Bryce Harper as a potential free agent target next winter. To take themselves out of the Harper bidding at this point, they’re going to have to get Stanton at a significant discount. There’s no sense of urgency from any of those clubs.
At this point, the Marlins may very well be best served just waiting until next year, then marketing Stanton as the cheaper alternative to the teams that don’t get Harper. Trying to force a trade now, when they have almost no leverage, is how a franchise makes a disastrous decision. If the Dodgers want to get into a bidding war, the Marlins should obviously consider it, but they’re now in dangerous territory, and could end up making a colossal mistake if they refuse to see any other options besides trading Stanton this winter.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Guess the fire sale now extends to guys like Yelich and Ozuna. The Marlins could surpass the pre-Ohtani Angels for the biggest “star and scrubs” team ever 😉
I agree, Marlins already told Stanton what would happen if he did not agree to a trade that was palatable to the Marlins ownership, and for them to back down now would be a horrible precedence for future negotiations with any other player, and a sign of horrible management. And, who knows, maybe they are bad managers.
Stanton and his agent is not being realistic, though. If those teams he chose had any interest in him before, under the Marlins requirement that they take on most of his contract, they would have been among the finalists with Cards and Giants. Stanton thinks the Marlins have no options but to trade him, but he’s wrong and he was even told what would happen if he refuses: fire sale of the rest of the team.
Assuming the Marlins do what they said they would do, that means they go to plan B, which they should have had in mind when they originally came to Stanton and told him that they are trading him or they are trading others, but however it happens, the payroll is going down $50M or so.
They dumped $13M of that with Gordon, and their only other high priced payrolls that are actually tradeable are Yellich and Ozuna, who I don’t blame the Marlins for wanting to keep over Stanton, but to get close to $50M, both will have to go, in which case, may as well sell off the whole team, in terms of who is valuable, and go with AAA players filling in everywhere.
Stanton will be unhappy (presumably, playing for a dump fire of a team; or maybe he’s happy counting his way to the bank), but he’s probably spending 2018 just counting how many homers he can hit. I guess he and his agents are willing to kill off 2018 in hopes the Dodgers would be willing to take on his contract after the 2018 season, rather than have him spend even one season in SF or St. Louis.
It is his right, and I get it, it is much like how a number of Giants players didn’t want to be Dodgers, like Vogelsong or Goodwin, so we’ll see how this works out for him. Maybe read things right by calling their bluff and they fold, that is very possible. But if they hold to what they said, they’ll probably be earning the first pick of 2019 draft.
Giants or Cardinals fan eh?
Probably a safe bet after seeing his name.
The Marlins did not give Stanton an ultimatum, and they never mentioned trading Ozuna or Yelich, nor a ‘fire sale.’ Apart from trading Gordon, they’ll just dump some bad contracts, though they’ll have to get creative.
Stanton’s agent Joel Wolfe is just leaking nonsense to try to get his client to his preferred destination- can’t take these tabloid press reports at face value.
Zeigler has $9/1 remaining on his contract, and projects for 3.95 ERA and 0.4 WAR- not impossible to eat half his contract and move him, or pair him with a guy like Dietrich in a trade. He limits HRs very well and suffered a .346 BABIP last season.
Prado projects for 1.5 WAR, has recovered from injury and has $26/2 left on his deal. Like Zeigler he is not unmovable if either some money is eaten, another player is added, or both depending on the terms.
The Marlins can cut $15m off of payroll by just moving those two, and then they are fairly near their target. Volquez is insured, so it’s not certain how they view the $8m or so from his insurance. That would leave somewhere between $0-15m still to cut in order to get under $90, depending on the deals and the insurance money, though there are no taxes to worry about if they miss their target.
Chen is projected for 1.1 WAR and 2.1 per 200 IP, though health obviously an issue and the bad contract at $42/3 remaining. If the Marlins ate half that contract, he doesn’t turn 33 until July and something around $21/3 might be movable. They at least have a chance to work something to save $7 or so there. Volquez and Tazawa are pretty impossible to move admittedly, but I’d be calling LAA right now and offering to eat $5.5 of the remaining 7 owed to Tazawa- he’s 31 and had 4 strong seasons in Boston prior to his last 2 years.
If absolutely desperate, Miami can find a prospect that they value around $5-10m and pair him with some dead money. Braxton Garrett was valued by fangraphs prospect value estimator at $22m this past March. Guys like 3B Brian Anderson, 3B James Nelson, SP Dillon Peters, or OF Brian Miller may have that $7-15m value that could be used to move a Chen or Tazawa.
Miami isn’t screwed, they are fairly likely to get 1-3 more great years of Stanton at a good price and then see him opt out – even if his FA market value dips a bit below his current AAV. They certainly don’t have to trade Yelich or Ozuna (despite more agent noise) for poor returns.
“Stanton and his agent is not being realistic, though. If those teams he chose had any interest in him before, under the Marlins requirement that they take on most of his contract, they would have been among the finalists with Cards and Giants.”
Maybe he just prefers Miami to St. Louis or San Francisco? Remember, it is not Stanton’s prerogative to help the Marlins solve their financial issues.
I know it’s been framed as mutually beneficial for Stanton and the Marlins to figure out a trade, but Stanton apparently feels that would only be true if LAD or NYY was his trade destination. And he’s well within his right to feel that way – he has the full no-trade clause, so he makes the rules.
recommend English class for you….
I believe you meant so say
“I would recommend you take an English class”
Perhaps you can get a two for one deal.
Jeter or Loria: Who did it worse?
Jeter bungled it but Loria made that terrible deal in the first place
Why is it a terrible deal?
Stanton’s remaining contract is close to being market value
and the Marlins certainly extracted more value from Stanton than what they paid him for the past three years.
If anything, the extension was a great deal for the Marlins.
I agree… It’s not a terrible deal, just a terrible franchise that can’t afford to pay for it.
The Marlins are in the 16th largest media market in the USA and have a state of the art ballpark with a retractable roof and a new TV deal on the way.
The Marlins could afford to keep Gordon and sign Darvish and Arrieta and try to win the N.L. Least.
Its a bad deal if they did not recognize they couldnt make it in the first place. When signing this deal they should have been looking at what kind of money they had projected for the years the deal cost more. I do understand that the franchise lost a key piece in JF, and seem to make some bad moves in order to try and replace him that has exacerbated the financial situation.
Its only a bad deal because the option is so early in the deal that it makes the back end of it a huge liability – basically 7/210 – if Stanton has a steep decline or injury issues.
It’s a bad deal because the Marlins don’t have the revenue to pay it and put a good team around him. They are a bottom two or three revenue team. It’s like the Rays or A’s signing a 13 / $325 deal with an NTC. The contract doesn’t fit the team situation.
Some history:
That deal was signed before Fernandez died. Loria and the Marlins had been taking a beating in the press (which never seemed to bother Loria before!) and had been refusing to trade Stanton, insisting they were going to build around him. Stanton had just gotten smashed in the face by an errant Mike Fiers pitch, and was looking to lock in some security.
Somehow that led to signing this monster extension, which Loria claimed (to his fellow owners) that Stanton would opt out of and he’d not have to pay the massive back end. Stanton insisted on the no-trade clause because of the history of the Marlins trading all their good players (read some of the quotes around the time of the Mark Buehrle/Jose Reyes trade).
Why the Marlins felt the need to suddenly bow to public pressure all of a sudden I don’t know, but they did.
Correct me if there’s any evidence against this, but it always felt that Loria was going to sell the team soon anyways, so he wouldn’t really have to worry about the back half of Stanton’s deal (similar to Mike Ilitch going all in on those final years of his life).
I have no idea what Loria thought his endgame was at the time. He always seemed like a weird combination of Bud Selig’s frugality and Steinbrenner’s temperament. He wanted to win and bleed the team of money all at the same time.
With regards to the opt-out, there was a quote by Frank Coonelly who was grilling the Marlins on this and they essentially said: “We’re only going to pay $107 million of this. He’s opting out for sure.” That’s what I was referring to.
Because Loria knew he’d be selling.
Loria was right that Stanton will opt out unless he misses 2 of the next 3 years to injury. It will prove to be a good deal for Miami.
If Stanton is going to opt out then J.D. Martinez is going to sign for more than $200 million next week.
Let me guess, with the Phillies?
Well, Loria got some super cheap years and then sold the franchise for a huge profit, so…. if you don’t deduct points for being a dick, he did it pretty dang well.
In retrospect it seems clear that Loria never intended to be involved in this contract by the time the option decision rolled around. Actually that was also a pretty obvious play when he made the deal.
The Marlins should just wait until next year. It’s only a disaster if they sell low on Stanton and one gives them the credit of believing that they truly must cut payroll.
If they just keep Stanton now, they will be no worse off except potentially in their pocket book (and no one cares about that except the owners). And if they truly “need” to drop 2018 payroll, they can just trade other guys like Ozuna, or package Yelich with bad contracts like Chen and Ziegler.
The main advantage to waiting is that if Stanton has a big first half he’s in major demand at the deadline, and you would think he might be more inclined to approve a trade to any serious contender that gives him a shot at a ring, also a first half that looks like the second half of this season would raise his trade value, of course on the flip side he gets a little banged up in ST misses some time and isnt his usual self in the first half making the odds of getting anything real back without eating a ton of money drops significantly.
Already seems to me like they made a disastrous decision on Dee.
Dee Gordon? That was a good deal, at least if your goal is to slash payroll. I can’t believe anyone gave up prospects for the right to pay that full contract.
Top 50 WAR guy the past 4 years… I would rather pay him 10 mil then a bad contract like Mike Dunn 8 mil…its a great deal for the Mariners. Lets not forget someone just gave Tyler freaking Chatwood 40 mil
On the free agent market, maybe giving a good defense, good baserunning, no power and okayish OBP second baseman $50+ million dollars into his 30s is a decent deal. He’s only projected for 1.6 fWAR next year. That’s an okay deal but not exactly a steal, will probably an albatross in a couple of years as the speed declines. And that’s before the prospects.
(he’s also #54 in WAR over the past 4 years, but that’s not really the point)
“Trying to force a trade now, when they have almost no leverage, is how a franchise makes a disastrous decision.”
Which suggests this ownership group will likely do it….
Waiting to deal Stanton is a terrible idea because if he gets hurt (like he usually does), or regresses (which is very possible) then they’ll have an even harder time trading him… They aren’t going to get nearly as much back, but this is absoloutly his peak value.
Right, and the opt out is the other consideration. 2 years control instead of 3 is a pretty big difference
Also, his no-trade clause doesn’t go away in a year. I doubt his list of acceptable teams suddenly goes from 4 to 30 next year. Marlins don’t really have any leverage. It’s now very clear after rejecting deals to SF and StL that Stanton is fine with remaining a Marlin.
Miami is happier to keep Stanton than he is to stay, they have leverage. He is very likely to provide surplus value to them.
I’m pretty sure the last few weeks prove that’s not true.
He will very likely opt out from Miami unless his career craters Prince Fielder style- possible for sure, but not likely. Stanton isn’t going to cling to Miami for an extra couple $M AAV, he’s already proven that by preferring the Dodgers over Tampa or Texas teams without state tax.
Miami’s never been in a situation where they were going to be able to trade him for much of a return. Even so, there is no reason to think, for sure, that this is Stanton’s absolute peak value- if he remains a 4-5 WAR player with limited health problems for the next few years, his value will be about as high as it is now, maybe a bit higher pre-season 2020.
Waiting a year to trade Stanton also means rolling the dice on him staying healthy in 2018. Stanton’s not likely to play 159 games next year. He combined for fewer than 200 games in 2015-16.
Re: Whether or not the Marlins should wait next year…
From the Marlins’ perspective, the whole thing (so far) rested on getting Stanton into accepting whatever deal would get them some value on prospects and close to total payroll relief. That option is pretty clearly off the table. They’re negotiating with the Dodgers and maybe the Yankees now.
I don’t see why waiting until next offseason would change their leverage. Their leverage is lousy is now, but next year he’s a year further removed from his prime (and a year closer to the big salary jumps) and likely no longer coming off an MVP season. Maybe they think they can get someone who misses on Harper to trade for Stanton but he still has that no-trade clause
The Marlins need to figure out what their bottom line is in terms of prospects/payroll relief, and when it makes sense for them to just keep him. If they get something like that this offseason, then they should trade him. If not, maybe they’ll get that next year but I doubt it…but at least they can still have Stanton in the meantime.
To me, it seems clear that the Marlins have telegraphed that keeping Stanton is not the preferred option, and that they’re desperate to cut payroll. To me prioritizing this now and dumping him would be the terrible, colossal mistake that Dave is referencing but from their perspective it might be what they’re looking for all along.
I don’t think there is any winning for the Marlins at this point. It’s either bad this year or very very likely worse next year. Stanton holds all the cards (pun mildly intended) and will either play for the team he wants, or just sit back and get rich on a terrible team. I don’t think that’s what he wants, but at the same time it would appear he’s not even close the the mind-set of doing Miami any favours.
The Marlins should take whatever they can get from whoever will give it to them (that Stanton will actually play for) and wash their hands of the whole situation.
Miami plays in a very poor division, in a league with alot of rebuilding teams- it’s not certain they will be a terrible team. People are taking agent chatter and tabloid ESPN style reporting at face value here, the Marlins have plenty of leverage.
Ahh. the world of Thom Servo, where Ken Rosenthal is literally tabloid.
Miami definitely did not telegraph that keeping Stanton isn’t the preferred option- it is. Stanton’s agent Joel Wolfe is pushing this nonsense. They can and are desperate to cut payroll obviously but there are options, and it doesn’t mean trading Yelich or Ozuna either.
Miami was never going to get much in a Stanton trade, but given that the Dodgers aren’t interesting- Wolfe tried to pressure them to eat money, which was never going to happen. Much ado about nothing, Marlins are happy to keep- he’s surplus value. Clubs that need money need surplus value, wins have monetary value. It’s the dead money they’ll look to dump.
Thom’s the most sensible poster on this thread, and he’s actually agreeing 100% with Dave. Of course the only sensible thing to do now is hang on to Stanton rather than let a lone Dodgers’ team extort him for peanuts. I’m sure they already have injury insurance on him, if not, time to buy it.
No no no, the MLB decides where Stanton goes. It’s good for MLB marketing, after all.
I’d be interested to know whether the Marlins approached Stanton before they marketed him to see what teams he would accept. My guess is that they didn’t, because they didn’t want to reduce their leverage in trading–the fewer number of teams in the potential bidding pool, the greater the offers. But, of course, that’s where they are now. They should probably hold him and look for a midseason trade.
If he stays in Miami after the fire sale, Stanton should pass the Bond’s record for most BB’s before Labor Day.
If the Dodgers do make a play, does the fact that he’s clearly aiming to land there make a difference in their thinking?
Seems like he is a lot more likely to opt into the remainder of the deal if he’s a Dodger. I’m honestly not sure whether thats good or bad from LA’s perspective. I suppose they could maybe capture more of the potential upside if he is really good the next few years?
I have seen and heard a lot of hate towards Stanton for this; that is so absurd. The Marlins are, and were, a fucking farce. This team is run like a Facebook pyramid scheme.
It is a high risk, high reward hardball move. He’s just playing by the same rules all MLB teams do in these negotiations.
It could definitely backfire for him, though.
Yes, it could backfire if he cares about the winning % of his team.
The late 2018 / 2019 Opening Day Marlins could be Stanton, a few players with bad contracts, and 20+ minimum salary players. They could, though, have a restocked farm system after trading Yelich, Ozuna, Realmuto, etc. and just eating most of the bad contracts rather than packaging them as trades combining good players/contracts with bad ones.
Dave wrote: “a season where [the Giants] posted the second-worst record in baseball”
Sorry to nitpick a detail, Dave, but actually, they had the worst record in baseball, tied with the Tigers.
Damn shame about the Marlins having to sell. Had Jose Fernandez not died the Marlins would likely have been at least a strong wild card contender this season. I’d wager more! So I really feel for the franchise being in such a poor city that they now have to pair down assets to be sellable. Damn Shame! And I root for a rival
Turned out not to be a disaster at all for the Marlins, since they seem to have gotten a better deal from the Yankees than what SF was offering (Beede, A. Garcia, $230MM).