LEGION OF BOOM
NL home-run king Giancarlo Stanton is a physical away from joining the Bronx Bombers — making the Blue Jays’ challenge even tougher,
NEW YORK— For two years, the New York Yankees moved deftly through an uncharacteristic rebuilding process, establishing a growing nucleus of inexpensive and talented young players that seemed to defy the team’s long-established identity as one of the biggest spenders in baseball.
But always lurking below the surface was the signature desire to bust open the vault and grab the best, and most expensive, player available. And now the Yankees have done just that.
On Saturday, they reverted to form by agreeing to a trade with the Miami Marlins for Giancarlo Stanton, the slugging outfielder and reigning National League most valuable player. Stanton, 28, hit 59 home runs last season, the most in the major leagues since 2001, and he is still guaranteed $295 million through 2028 under the terms of the mammoth 13-year, $325 million deal he signed with the Marlins in 2014.
The deal was confirmed by a person in baseball with knowledge of the transaction, which will not be official until physicals are completed. In exchange for Stanton, the person said, the Yankees will surrender two modest prospects and second baseman Starlin Castro. The Marlins, the person said, will also put about $30 million into the deal to offset some of what the Yankees will owe Stanton.
The deal means the Yankees will have the game’s two most intimidating sluggers, Stanton and Aaron Judge, in the same lineup and may again become baseball’s marquee team.
Judge sent a tweet to Stanton showing a clip from the movie Step Brothers with Will Ferrell saying, “Did we just become best friends?”
All this came about because Stanton’s contract became too much for the financially struggling Marlins to bear. When a new ownership group, which includes former Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, took over the Marlins franchise over the summer, it quickly concluded that the smart move would be to trade Stanton and get out from under the fiscal burden of his contract.
Initially, the Yankees, who came within one victory of reaching the World Series last season, were not considered a likely destination.
After all, they had a Stanton-like player in Judge, who hit 52 home runs in his rookie season this year and, like Stanton, is a physically imposing right-handed-hitting corner outfielder. Unlike Stanton, Judge, 25, is new to the major leagues and makes virtually nothing by baseball standards.
So the Yankees basically stood to the side and watched as Jeter, who is in charge of the Marlins’ baseball decisions, tried, at first, to deal Stanton to other clubs.
Stanton was believed to have met recently with representatives of the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals to facilitate a deal. But on Friday, those clubs announced that Stanton, who has a full no-trade clause, had vetoed their proposals.
Instead, it was believed that Stanton had narrowed the list of teams he was willing to play for to four — the Yankees, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Chicago Cubs and the world champion Houston Astros.
As Friday progressed into Saturday, it was the Yankees who emerged as the Marlins’ partner in a deal. But the price tag is a significant one, even for the Yankees. Next season alone, Stanton is due to make $25 million, which would seem to jeopardize the team’s stated intent to have a 2018 payroll that is under the new luxury tax threshold of $197 million. The person who confirmed the deal, however, said the Yankees remained confident they could find a way to abide by the threshold even with Stanton aboard.
In giving up Castro in the deal, the Yankees are relinquishing a solid 27year-old player who appeared in 112 games last season and batted .300 with 16 home runs and 63 RBIs. He was under contract for two more seasons, along with an option year, and will make about $11 million in 2018.
The two minor leaguers the Yankees are sending to the Marlins are Jorge Guzman, a pitcher, and Jose Devers, an infielder. Neither is considered among the Yankees’ top prospects, but Jeter’s new director of player development and scouting is Gary Denbo, who in his previous job was the Yankees’ vice-president for player development.
So the Marlins are familiar with the two prospects and no doubt see potential in them. The team is also very aware of the quality of player it is giving up.
Stanton, who is 6 feet 6 inches, will join the 6-7 Judge to help form the most physically imposing lineup in baseball. Both hit balls well over 400 feet with regularity. The sluggers will even have a sidekick of sorts in catcher Gary Sanchez, who, like Judge, is 25. A right-handed hitter as well, Sanchez hit 20 home runs in his limited rookie debut in 2016 and then 33 more last season.
Stanton and Judge are primarily right fielders, but they could be shifted among designated hitter, right field and left field in conjunction with Brett Gardner, the current left fielder. Stanton has played 942 games in right field, but none in left.
Although he has played in the major leagues for eight years and hit 267 career home runs, Stanton turned 28 only a month ago and could be just entering his prime.
The Yankees’ deal for Stanton comes less than a week after the team was rebuffed in its pursuit of Shohei Ohtani, a relatively inexpensive two-way player from Japan, who instead signed with the Los Angeles Angels on Friday.
Ohtani has been compared to Babe Ruth because he can pitch and hit with almost equal skill. The last major league player to have as many plate appearances and pitch as many innings as Ohtani averaged in Japan was Ruth in 1919.
The Yankees would surely have liked to sign Ohtani, particularly because of his link to Ruth, a Yankees icon. But instead they now have Stanton, a player who is Ruth-like in so many other ways.