Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 575: The Giancarlo Stanton Extension

Episode Date: November 17, 2014

Ben and Sam banter about non-revelatory rumors, replay-review revisions, and Barry Zito, then discuss the reported terms of the Marlins’ historic Giancarlo Stanton extension.

Poor little fish, swimming in the water, hide behind the coattails of your father. Where you are is who you are, when you're sleeping. Good morning and welcome to episode 575 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives, brought to you by MailChimp. Brought to you by Playindex at BaseballReference.com. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg of Grantland. Hi, Ben. Hi. You use MailChimp. Do I?

No, you don't. No. All right. How are you? Okay. Good. Anything to talk about? Yeah. I think I'd like to start a new segment. Won't be every show, but a recurring segment that was sort of inspired by the Whimsy Watch on Hang Up and Listen. Oh my gosh. I knew it was going to be whimsy watch related yeah well it's not really in except in that it's a segment that is at the beginning of the show but it is similar in spirit maybe it is the non-revelatory rumor watch so this will be rumors that not only not only don't tell us of an impending move, not only do they not necessarily inform us of a transaction,

they don't tell us anything, really. There is no information, no content whatsoever. It's just some words. There's a baseball player mentioned. There's a team mentioned, but the words do not inform us of anything. We don't know anything after reading the rumor that we didn't know before reading the rumor. And these rumors don't make the world a worse place. There needs to be something to fill the baseball void over the winter, I understand.

And there is an appetite for these things. So I understand how they get out there. But I just have been noticing some, and I figured that maybe we can chronicle them over the winter. So a couple that, well, first of all, an example of what is not one. We talked last week about... Wait, wait, I think I can find one that's not one. If you give me a second, i think i could find one that's not one give me a second i bet i can find one yeah there were there were some real ones today or some some juicy ones some ones that at

least implied that something might happen at some point and this one though sounds like it's sounds like it's a non-revelatory rumor but it it actually isn't. I don't think we talked last week about willing to listen and whether that is an information-free phrasing for a rumor, given that every team is willing to listen. So Jim Bowden tweeted that John Daniels said that the Rangers will listen on Elvis Andrews because of their infield depth, but he was quoting John Daniels. John Daniels said that they would listen. I'm sure John Daniels listens to everything, so this doesn't really tell

us anything, but he's quoting something Daniels said. He asked Daniels this, and this is what Daniels responded. That's fine. If this had been sources, then I would probably include it. Wait, what if in response to this question, John Daniels had said, I'm not willing to entertain your question. Would the fact that he said it be news? Is this a situation where if the president says something, it's news just because he's the president?

I mean, is any response to the question about a player a cause for Arlington versions of Kremlinology? If you get someone on the record about something, I'm okay with you quoting what that person said. Even if it's essentially a no comment. Yeah. That's okay. If it were no comment, would that be worth a tweet, do you think? I mean, the bar for what's worth a tweet is pretty low.

So, sure. I'm sure it would get some retweets. Okay, so John Marossi tweeted that the Blue Jays have... Yes! I was going to ask you. I was going to ask you if this counted. I think it counts as a non-revelatory reward. The Blue Jays have had contact with the agent for Nick Marcakis, but they aren't seriously pursuing him now.

Wait, wait, wait, though. That's one of two. Yes. Second to Blue Jays appear to be in a similar place with Hanley Ramirez. They have established contact, but are not actively pursuing him now. Hang on, hang on. No. No?

No, two was Blue Jays prioritizing other outfield options, other outfield priorities ahead of Marquegas. Ah, okay. Orioles still trying to re-sign Marquegas, but not close on deal. I feel like, so here's what I think. I think that you're being unfair to John Marossi on that one. And I know that you would say that none of these are unfair because you're doing this with love or something,

but let's be honest. I think that, in fact, so here's the thing. He says, sources, Blue Jays have had contact with agent for Nick Marquegas, but they aren't seriously pursuing him now. If you delete the first half of that and just say the Blue Jays aren't seriously pursuing Nick Marcakis, that's interesting, right? If you're essentially ruling out the Blue Jays as a destination for Marcakis

and or Marcakis as a target for the Blue Jays, that's newsworthy. It's the softness Of the contact that is being reported See he buried the lead Which is hard to do in a tweet That's right Yeah okay I see what you're saying So same

So are we saying that The Hanley Ramirez rumor clears the same bar Tell me that one again. They have established contact but are not actively pursuing him. So any not actively pursuing is information. We know that the team is not actively pursuing the player, so therefore. I don't think we need to go down the list of all 50 top free agents and get a not pursuing on 48 of them.

I assumed that there – I assumed, maybe I shouldn't have, but I assumed that Markakis had been – maybe he is a buzzy candidate that Blue Jays fans are talking about acquiring. Maybe there were previous rumors. Maybe some source previously said that it'd be a good fit. I think the bar is fairly low there but there does need to be some reason that

you're linking them. There's no reason to link unlinked parties. Yeah. Even to say they're not linked yeah i don't i don't know the backstory there like i don't need a uh uh blue jay is not actively trying to trade for chris snelling like i don't need that right now and so like otherwise we're just talking about if we're describing every single thing that's not happening.

Right. That's a lot of tweets. It is. So this tells us that the Blue Jays have contact info for Hanley Ramirez's agent, and maybe they gave him a call to say hello, but that's about it. I think that, yeah, I think that there's a lot of contact going on.

Like, I think that there's a lot of check and check. Sure, yeah. That nobody considers necessary to report to anybody. Okay, one more candidate. This comes from Nick Capardo of the Boston Globe. It's a Hisashi Iwakuma rumor. And the rumor is that Seattle has fielded inquiries from a few teams on Iwakuma. And the Red Sox have had at least internal conversations about him.

How do we feel about internal conversations? If they're from one of the teams that does not currently control him uh we don't every like everybody would want iwakuma sure right yeah is there any team that tells us anything that has ruled out iwakuma no i don't think so i don't know that it tells us anything that they've fielded inquiries either i mean we have to assume that any desirable player has received that his team has received inquiries about him at some point, unless those inquiries are serious or leading somewhere that doesn't really advance our knowledge of the state of the offseason, I don't think. So I'm going to say that internal conversations and fielding inquiries without follow-ups,

without subsequent steps in the negotiation, goes on my list. Right. All this does is confirm that a player who clearly has trade value has trade value. It doesn't indicate any pieces being, you know, any parts rolling on this. Okay. All right. Still feeling my way here. We'll see what constitutes a non-revelatory rumor over time, but please feel free to send me tweets if you see them or post them in the Facebook group or whatever, and we will continue to discuss what is allowed and what is not

should I be looking for these or do you prefer that I am a passive participant sure yeah if you come across one okay the other thing just got competitive yeah we can have

now it's going to turn into a draft at the end of the offseason where we draft our least interesting rumors. Okay, you were interested. You were pretty jazzed last winter about the Mark Mulder comeback. Wait, are we still bantering? Yeah. Okay.

This is not the topic of the show. It's not even my day for the topic. So now you want to know how I feel about Zito? Yes. Much less so. Really? Much, much less so. But you watched much more of Zito.

Maybe that's why you're not interested in the Zito comeback. Yeah, well, Mulder was a different thing. I mean, Mulder was still pretty good. And then it was pretty clear that his body gave up. And he left early. In a sense, it was very slow because it took three years for him to go from above average major league starter to out of the game. I mean, he pitched for three years. But he only threw 100 innings in those three years.

This was a complete physical deterioration. He was not the same guy. He was throwing, as I recall, he was throwing like, well, he was throwing like Zito throws when Zito's healthy. And so there was, it was conceivable to believe, especially also that he left for five years. And I just don't think that you leave for five years and then come back on a whim thinking you know if you if you kind of half expect to suck

um i i feel i i feel like just him doing this after five years away is a is a fairly strong witness or testimony to you know what he thinks he's of. Zito is just a guy who didn't get an offer last year and is now back. Zito didn't break down. Zito wasn't good for five years. He was under contract. He would have been gone probably years earlier, but he was under contract. Contract ran out. I don't know that he pursued the contract. I'm sure he could have been an invite guy. I'm sure the Blue Jays talked to his agent but did not actively pursue. I feel But, you know, I mean, I just I feel like Zito, it wasn't an injury case.

Now, is it inconceivable that a year off he comes back stronger and is throwing, you know, a little harder or, you know, has more stamina or something? I guess. Spent the year traveling, surfing and enjoying life away from baseball. The thing is that like we saw Mulder. Mulder went, forgive me, but Mulder goes 16-8 and has a well above average ERA. And then the next year, he's got an ERA of 7 and it's done. It's like there wasn't, and he was only 28. And so there wasn't the natural progression

of a guy whose career was ending. And so it sort of was hard to watch, but you knew exactly what it was. It was the shoulder, right? And so if you clean that up, there's no reason to think that at 35, Mulder probably projected to be a pretty good 35-year-old once upon a time. It's just so different with Zito. Like Zito has a Pocota projection. Like I don't need to see what Zito's going to do. We have all the data about what Zito does. With Mulder, it was different.

I don't think Mulder had a Pakoda projection. If we did, LOL. Okay. I get it. Makes sense. Lastly, Jotori said something about how he is determined to eliminate the delay in time before replay reviews and this was something he didn't plan on, he didn't expect. And this is one area where we'll do something different. We'll eliminate some of that standing around because 10 seconds in our game seems like a lifetime. So do you have any ideas for what that thing would be for a way to cut down on that? Would it just be as simple as you have five seconds to challenge? And so there is no longer any time to review the play in the clubhouse.

And if so, will we see what we expected to see this year, which is more challenges when When we talked to Dan Brooks and we talked to Russell and they wrote about how we expected to see lots of challenges this year, because statistically speaking, it made sense to challenge whenever there was a play that looked kind of close to challengeable because there aren't really all that many of those plays and you get a few chances to do it and everything. So it made sense. But I think one reason why that didn't happen is because there was all this standing around and watching replay time. And so managers had an opportunity or someone on the team had an opportunity to look at the play and see with some degree of certainty, whether it was worth challenging. And so they didn't do frivolous challenges.

But if they cut out all that time and you can no longer have this replay relay system, maybe we will see that. Do you think that there is a chance that we will see that? I think that Torrey is probably going to lose this one. My guess is that once baseball players and coaches sort of take control over a certain territorial part of the game, or particularly with pace, it's hard to put that back in the bottle. So I don't know. He might get it done. I'm somewhat skeptical, though. I would think

that it'll be, it'll probably be... My guess is it'll be like this until a few years down the road it won't be a manager's decision at all. Or managers will be maybe only a very last layer of bureaucracy, but it'll basically be the guy in the booth making the decision

of whether to replay it or review it on his own that would be my guess but yeah if if there was no way for the manager to confirm with his video guy and to stall for 90 seconds while they watch every angle then I think that it would be a lot more suspenseful because they would have to guess a lot more and and that's more than the delay. I have to say that more than the delay, which never bothers me too much because I very rarely am watching a game passively

and sitting there and watching from the first inning to the last. So more than the delay, though, I disliked the lack of suspense. I wanted them to lose a lot more challenges. I wanted them to go out there and not really know whether to do it or not. I wanted it to be another lot more challenges. I wanted them to go out there and not really know whether to do it or not. I wanted it to be another suspenseful part of the game. Instead, it was just like once they came out and they made their decision,

they'd already seen the angle and we'd already seen the angle and there was no suspense. Did I make my point? Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. I'm done. The rest of the show is all yours. What do we think about this one?

Stanton? No, no. I have a tweet for you. Oh, okay. I'm still trying to get the rules, so I don't... I don't...

Me too. I don't know. I'm not sure if this is a good one or not, so I'm going to ask for your... So this is Chris Cotillo. Team to watch if Jason Castro

has traded White Sox. Have heard Han has been enamored with Castro for a while that's that's it seems good right like I that's that's good right I think so yeah I mean sure assuming it's it's based on something reliable I mean someone who actually the guy though I mean yeah that suggests that maybe he would go out of his way to make a move that he would give up more to get the guy see i think enamored actively pursue him to me enamored is a little light if he had twice right like if you if it were the same thing but uh han is has twice attempted to start discussions about castro that sort of a thing.

Or Han has made it known that he wants Castro. Just liking a guy could be awfully casual. It could just be an offhand comment that got repeated. But I think that in spirit that this one is a tweet that tells us something. So withdrawn from the competition. Okay. All right. So, John Carlos Stanton, have you written anything?

Is it running in the morning? I have written something, but it might not run until the actual deal happens. I'm not sure. Can you give us any? I guess you can't tell us what you wrote or you maybe don't want us to want to but uh what's what's the what's the what's the story what what would you write about if you were writing um i i mean i think the initial reaction you you wrote in your article that a smart person contacted you and said that this was crazy or asked whether this was crazy, 13 years and $325 million for Stanton. And the same smart

person said the same thing to me. And initially, there is some sticker shock, I think, in that you look at the years and it's a crazy number of years. And then the total contract commitment is the largest ever. And so you see those numbers and it's the Marlins and that's somewhat shocking. And it's Stanton, who is a great, great player, but maybe has not accomplished as much as previous players who got the largest contract ever. And it seems like a lot at first, but then once you do the division, once you do like what 325 divided by 13 is, it seems not so crazy crazy and the more you think about stanton's age it seems not so crazy and the the thing is that we have we've talked about the danger of the extension two years away from free

agency and we talked about this with verlander talked about it with miguel cabrera that when you're extending a player Before you have to Once you get to this point Because Stanton is into his Arb years now He's projected to make something like $13 million This winter through arbitration

With a raise to follow next winter So it's not as if he is In danger Of not making any money Or something else to happen to him. So by the time a player gets to this point, he's maybe not quite so desperate to make a long-term move. And so it's sort of a dangerous time to extend someone because you're giving him this endless commitment or the potential for one and yet you're probably not talking to a player who's in a position where he's going to exchange a ton of of money for security and so we've talked about that with those other guys how it seemed like the tigers didn't really

get a discount for them or you could even go go back to Ryan Howard, who was at the same level of service time when he got his extension, although he was not nearly the player that those other players or Stanton is. So you can look at that, but the age is just such a big difference from those other deals that Stanton is 25 and everyone else we're talking about was,

you know, 30 or pushing 30 or over 30. And that makes a big difference. And even though there is also the opt out clause, which we've talked about how that generally favors the player, there is the no trade clause, which is a concession that the Marlins haven't made for quite some time. Even all that, I can understand why it makes some sense. Yeah, I think that... I think that... I don't know. I might be on an island here,

but I sort of feel like the Marlins did get a discount here. And again, it's hard to say that when it's the biggest contract ever in what in all of pro sports and it's the longest contract in the longest in baseball history it's got to be close I think so and so it's hard to say that but I mean

if Trout had signed the contract he deserved for instance a year ago, then it wouldn't be the biggest contract in the history of pro sports. And so then we wouldn't be able to say that. And so then it would be much more reasonable for Stanton. But I think that he is, well, first of all, I don't know. It's hard to explain why I think this is below market.

But basically, I think that the, as I kind of wrote about, to me, these guys all tend to, the salaries that players sign tend to clump into tiers. And so you see a lot of pitchers, for instance, who are similar to each other. They're asking for you know basically the same contract that another guy who's kind of like him got and it's sort of weird how there's not a ton of subtlety or or nuance in these contracts it's like well

uh zach granky got this i'm like zach granky i want zach Granke's money. And you might see a little bit of movement here or there. But basically, the profile is I'm a pitcher who gets this many years like other pitchers like me and this amount of money per year like other pitchers like me. And so it seemed to me that 10 and 300 had become this standard that people now talked about. Who's going to get to that tier? And so Albert Pujols wanted that. He reportedly opened negotiations with the Cardinals asking for 10 and 300. And that was three years ago. And so there's been inflation since then. And Albert Pujols was amazing and incredibly good, but also really old relative to Sin. And so he didn't get 10 and 300.

He got close. He got 10 and what's basically 255, according to the union's way of doing the math. And he was, you know, but he was going for 10 and 300. And then Robinson Cano wanted 10 and 300 from the Yankees. Clayton Kershaw, there was a lot of talk about 10 and 300 for the Dodgers. It seems clear to me that 10 and 300 is this mark that the conversation was going to center around and so I have to imagine that like Stanton was either looking for 10 and 300 or you know when he went into free agency basically in two years he was going to be looking for 10 and 300 so

if you just imagine that in two years he's going to sign for 10 and 300 somewhere, and I think he's worth it. I think that's a fine ... I don't know necessarily that I would sign him for that right now if I had the opportunity of waiting two years and thought I could do it. But 10 and 300 seems like a totally fine price to pay for a 26 to 35-year-old showing Carlos Stanton assuming he's still good. And so if you kind of accept that that's happening, that 10 and 300 is already committed to, then you're talking about getting a couple of extra years for really cheap.

And you're not going out much longer than you would want to. It's really incredible to think that they can do this and still be done with him by the time he's 37, whereas Pujols goes until like 41 or 42 and Cano is like 41 is when his ends. You see like Victor Martinez getting a deal that'll take him to 39 or 40 and like he's 35 he's a 35 year old former catcher i mean it's and vato will be 40 or in that range and yeah everyone who gets these deals ends up being 40 or something because you don't generally get these deals unless you've been an mvp or a cy young winner or something and you're nearing or at free agency.

And so you almost have to be 29 or 30 or something at that point. Yeah. So there is – I haven't spoken to Mr. Stanton. I don't know what's going on in his head. But it does seem plausible considering that three months ago he was still talking trash about the Marlins as a franchise just before he got hit in the face with a pitch. And then three months later after the hit in the face with a pitch, he signs this contract

that basically gives away, if not his entire career, then at least five years because he's got the opt-out to this franchise that can't be trusted and that he knows can't be trusted. It does make you think that he might be at a somewhat vulnerable time or if not vulnerable, like kind of just he sort of, this was a moment where he realized, you know, I'm just going to take the security. This is a priority for me in my life right now. I don't want to get hit in the face with another fastball. I see how fast you can lose something.

And so I think that if you realize that he's in that mindset, that he's got that priority, it's not altogether unlike signing a pre-arb guy who wants to really bank that first big payday. It's not, in other words, like signing Miguel Cabrera, where you know you're going to get no discount for security because Miguel Cabrera is already a multi-hundred millionaire. Same with Verlander. Same with, I don't know if Howard was Howard. I guess Howard was.

He got that big arbitration deal, right? But he was four years of service time. Yeah, so that was more like him. Anyway, so I think that I believe that basically what I'm saying is I believe that Stanton is willing to take less today than he would have been willing to take at any point in the next two years.

I also believe that the Marlins did not have an equal chance of signing him once he hit free agency as I assume most teams do. I think if Cabrera had hit free agency as I assume most teams do. Like I think if Cabrera hit free agency, I would have given the Tigers a better than than average chance to resign him. Even then I would give the Marlins like almost no chance. And maybe I'm over thinking how much the Marlins hurts being the Marlins. I'm surprised they were able to sign Jared Sotomaki last year.

I'm still surprised by that. But I just think that the Marlins didn't actually have the luxury of saying, well, we'll wait two years and see. Because I really just don't think that, like, they're the least appealing team to play for in baseball. I don't know what they offer anybody. And this is like the one moment in the history of them and Mike Stanton, John Carlos Stanton, where they have something that no other team can give them.

They can give him the security right now, today, and nobody else can do that. And once that's gone, once he stops feeling like he needs the security, and when he starts being able to, certainly once he's a free agency, they have nothing. They can't offer anything.

Even if you think that, oh, well, they're a good team. They're coming up strong. They have this fun farm system. They're going to be better than we thought, faster than we thought. They're still not the favorites in any... It's not like you're thinking, oh, they're a lock to win the World Series in 2017. There's 15 teams

that I would choose over them, at least for 2017 and 2018 and 2019. There's really nothing that they're ever going to be able to offer him that is better than what they can offer him today. So I think that they took advantage of good timing. I think that Stanton had an idea of what was best for him and did the right thing. I think both of them got probably better than I would have expected

they would get from the other party. I didn't think that the Marlins would necessarily give Stanton this much. And I didn't think that Stanton would sign with the Marlins for this much. It's kind of like you have two people who are both sevens, but they both think that they're eights and that the other one is a seven yeah and you're like oh well how are these people going to get together they're perfect for each other but they'll never they'll never see it they're both they both think that they're eights but for that one magical night something happened like the lighting was dim they played their song it was like they were playing like uh shy and uh the mood One of them drank more than the other.

They both drank more than the other. They both drank more than the other. And it turned out that they stayed married for 13 years. Well, they stayed married for 5 years. They stayed married for 13 but they separated after 5. The Marlins assume some

slight additional risk in that Stanton hasn't played, hasn't faced major league pitching since the injury, right? I mean, it's a slight risk. You'll probably be completely fine. But there have been a few examples in baseball history of someone who got beaned and wasn't the same afterwards. So they are assuming some risk there. the same afterwards so they are assuming some risk there that's like i mean when we talk about how you're giving up information by signing someone before you have to or before before you're going to lose him that is an example of this like maybe maybe the marlins would have felt a little bit

more confident about him if they had seen him come back and be great next April or something. But maybe at that point, he wouldn't have been willing to sign this deal. So maybe that's part of it too. But I don't know. I think the Marlins were able to do this if they, in fact, do this because they, for once, they didn't act like the Marlins. Like, if the Marlins had approached this the way that they always approach things, they would not have signed him. They would have had no chance to sign him, I'm sure, if they had not only given him the money,

but even if they had given him the money and not given him the no trade or not given him the opt-out, I'm guessing it wouldn't have gotten done. I don't know. We'll find out more about that, whether those things were actually deal breakers or not or deal makers. But I would think that that had to be a big part of it because that's the thing that made Stanton so mad the last time in 2012 when he had that tweet about how angry he was. And he kind of ranted to Peter Gammons about how he didn't like what the team was doing, that was because they signed all these guys as free agents and they backloaded their deals and they didn't give them no trade clauses. And the second thing sort of went south that season, they dealt them. They got rid of them.

And if there was any chance that that would have happened again, I don't think Stanton necessarily trusts the Marlins to be just forthright in every way and never to go back on their word or anything. I mean, he's been burned before, and he's seen what can happen. But that's not a risk here, least for him personally he now kind of controls his destiny and there's a risk that like the marlins will just surround him with no one like i'm sure they told him that they're going to invest in the team and everything and pursue extensions with the other young players and sign free agents and do whatever they have to do

and they could certainly change course and not do that. They could just cut corners everywhere else on the roster to pay for Stanton's salary. And then he will be upset again, but he'll have an out. He'll be able to get out of it after what is age 29 season when he can go somewhere else and make many, many more millions of dollars. So it seems like he did this because the Marlins broke precedent. They acted like a normal team for once. And maybe that's like his greatest achievement here. Whatever else he accomplishes during the

life of this contract, he actually forced Jeffrey Luria to act like a regular owner for once. So that I would think is what got it done is not that they said they would do something differently this time, but that they actually did. They made these concessions that they have not been willing to make for any player for years. they have not been willing to make for any player for years. What do you make of this no trade clause? Because it seems hard to imagine the scenario where the Marlins are trying to trade John Carlos Stanton, where John Carlos Stanton wouldn't want to be traded. Like if they want to be rid of him, it's almost certainly the sort of awful Marlins type situation

where he would want to be very rid of them. And so normally these things just, they, sometimes no trade clauses are that you don't want to get traded, like you're Derek Lee and you have your family situation. But, and the other way is that it's just leverage. It's a way of getting the new team to basically pay you, extend you, whatever, for the privilege of having you waive your no trade clause you have this leverage for a moment but he's having he's got a 13 year deal like the marlins are going to trade him in like year three and he's going to negotiate an extension on that so it seems weird to me and

i can only think of three ways of thinking about this but i'm curious what you make of the no trade clause yeah i i mean yeah I wrote something about that too, that if they really want to trade him, they can just make his life miserable the way that they've done before by trading everyone else or not investing in the team. And then he will want to leave because he does seem to want to win.

Or, you know, he says he wants to win and he's making the money now. So he'll make that wherever he goes. He'll have every reason to leave if he thinks that they are not living up to their end of the bargain. So, so yeah, it's possible that in the end, the no trade cause won't do anything effectively. And I don't know, I guess it's just, and I don't know I guess it's just it's it's maybe I mean it's it's another obstacle in the way it'll it's something that would probably prevent them from just immediately changing course I don't like do you think I mean I guess Stanton's deal would be pretty tradable if they were to do it sometime in the next few years if they decide they want to do that.

Like if we're saying that we think it's a reasonable deal, then they can move him even though he is committed forever. Presumably some team would still be interested in him. I think it should be very movable, but the fact that people are running around emailing you and I, smart people are running around emailing you and I, smart people are running around emailing you and I, that it's insane, makes me wonder whether we're wrong. Just curious, Matt Trueblood asked us this. I can't remember if it was before or after the deal was signed, actually.

But does Stanton have more trade value or less trade value today than he did, well, today, assuming the deal is completed? Does he have more trade value or less trade value than he did, say, five days ago? Yeah. I don't know. I would guess less. I would think that it would just be psychologically easier maybe to convince ownership to go for a guy who is not owed $325 million. Even if you can make the case that that's a fair rate for him. I would guess that there would be some owners who would just say, no, I'm not doing that.

Although maybe if those owners said that, then the team wouldn't be interested in acquiring him anyway. I don't know. But I would guess the fact that the number is official makes it a little harder to move him. Yeah. I think probably that's true. But I mean, the no trade clause could just be as simple as him just wanting to control where he goes, right? I mean, if to trade him they can't necessarily do it with whatever team comes to them with the best offer they have to do it with whatever team stanton will approve yeah i think that's one of the three things the the three ways i make sense of it is that basically it creates uh an almost free agency for him i do you think that it how likely do you think it is that he's playing with the Marlins? I was going to ask you the same question. Let's say, first off, there's just period.

How likely is it he's playing for the Marlins in six years? Or let's say in 12 years. And secondly is if he doesn't opt out, take opt out off the table, then how likely is it that they don't trade him? Because there's probably at least a 60% chance he opts out. Yeah, I would think so. I mean, pretty much everyone who's had an opt out has opted out.

It's so weird, though, because it really does depend how they structure the deal. If it's just $25 million a year straight across the board, that's very different than if it's safe. Because the Marlins want to backload it because they want to be able to trade him. And Stanton wants to have it heavily front loaded because that's what's coming before the opt-out. that's what's coming before the opt-out. And so, it will be interesting to see whether it's complicated, whether different years are worth different amounts, or whether they just do 25 across the board. And you can't really answer either question without knowing what that is. But let's just assume that Stanton probably is going to be in a pretty good position to opt-out and probably will. Now, what are the odds that the Marlins trade him before the opt out?

And without, of course, we don't know the terms of the no trade clause, but what are the odds that they trade him before the opt out? And if he doesn't opt out for some reason, I don't know why he wouldn't, but let's say he's still good. What are the odds they trade him before 13 years is over? Let's say he's still good. What are the odds they trade him before 13 years is over? So am I just saying the odds of a trade,

or am I also including the odds that he will opt out and some other team will sign him? Both. Okay, so the odds that he will not be a Marlins. The odds that he's playing for the Marlins in 2025. Yeah. I'm going to um like 15 percent uh-huh yeah i was gonna say like eight yeah it's it's not high i don't think now uh all right we'll just leave it at that the whole if he doesn't okay so that so one possibility is yeah that he's basically counting on the marlins trying to

trade him at some point and that turns into his into his new free agency in the middle of his career, in a sense, where he gets to pick whichever team he wants. And he could even narrow it down to one team if he really wanted to. Yeah. Which would be fun. Two, hypothesis two is, eh, it's cheap. You know, like, probably it didn't cost him much in negotiations to ask for this. Probably it might have cost him nothing. It might have in this case just because the Marlins have this team policy against them.

It's hard to know, right? On the one hand, it could be that because the Marlins are so strict about this and use their trade freedom more than almost any other team, they might have charged them a hefty fee for this. But it might have been that Stanton went in and said, yeah, I don't trust you guys. I don't believe you're good people. You're going to have to show me that you are. And they said, well, we'll show you. You can have a no trade clause, no questions asked.

So we don't know what it was like. But it's conceivable that it was cheap, relatively speaking. And he thought, why not? Why not have a little control? It doesn't hurt me. Third, which I kind of hope will be true, I kind of hope I got this right, is I kind of expect the no trade clause to come with another opt-out. So if he gets traded, a new opt-out clause kicks in for, say, the next offseason or maybe after one full season or something like that. So wherever he gets traded, not only does he have some control over where he goes, but then he has a literal free agency if he wants it.

Yeah. I have no evidence. Just said it. Just said it because I felt it. It's not even a non-revelatory rumor. It's a complete fabrication. It's a very revealing fabrication. Yeah.

All right. Anything else about Stanton that we need to talk about? Yeah, I think we're okay. we're okay uh do you um uh i've seen some version of this said a lot since the conversation me uh he's the third or the fourth or the second most you know valuable player in the game right now if you were going to give this to anybody it would be trout if not trout then it would be harper if not harper then it would be Harper. If not Harper, then it would be Stanton. Something along those lines. Who right now would you be more willing to give this contract to, Harper or Stanton?

I think, man, I guess probably Stanton. I would say Stanton Less upside But less downside Yeah Okay Is that it? By the way we jinxed Jeff Beliveau He suffered a lat strain

In one of the games in Japan We jinxed him so hard that Robinson Cano broke his toe Was it? He suffered a lat strain in one of the games in Japan. We jinxed him so hard that Robinson Cano broke his toe, wasn't it? Yeah, and the MLB team got no hit once. Yeah. Okay, so that is the end of this show. Is Jeff Beliveau one of our guys now? Are we going to have updates? I guess so.

Are we next year going to have a Jeff Beliveau only league? He is now a recurring podcast character Yeah Alright, so that's the end of the show Please support our sponsor by going to baseballreference.com Subscribing to the Play Index using the coupon code BP To get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. We are approaching 2,000 members of the Facebook group,

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