Rough seas ahead for Cap’s new ship
ORLANDO, Fla. — It would be something: Derek Jeter trading Giancarlo Stanton to the Yankees. And the 28-year-old superstar slugger would be another nice luxury for the Yankees to have.
Imagine Stanton and Aaron Judge in the same lineup?! Nevertheless, it’s complicated. As in: What would the prospect cost be — given Stanton’s past injury history and the fact that he’s owed $295 million over the next 10 years?
According to Jon Heyman, Miami and the Yankees had a brief dialogue about Stanton — initiated by the Marlins — but nothing more than that.
Orlando, Fla. — Derek Jeter has never been the bad guy, right? But if he trades Giancarlo Stanton just to unload the slugger’s $295 million as a way of beginning a major rebuild with the Marlins, and can’t bring back blue-chip prospects in the deal, Jeter won’t be the toast of Miami, put it that way. Is he ready for that? Will he make the tough call for the longterm future of the Marlins’ franchise?
Somehow, I don’t think this is what Jeter envisioned all those years during his Yankee career when he talked about wanting to be an owner someday.
But this is where he finds himself, faced with quite a dilemma in his first major decision as the new owner of the Marlins: because I don’t believe teams will give up top prospects in a deal for Stanton, even coming off a 59-home run season, if they have to take on the remaining 10 years and $295 million on his contract.
Yet Jeter desperately needs and wants the salary relief to kick off a rebuild, which is the only way to go for a franchise that has little quality pitching and one of the weakest farm systems in baseball.
Meanwhile, all of baseball is watching to see if Jeter’s ability to deliver in the clutch carries over from his days in pinstripes. Can he create enough of a bidding war for Stanton to convince some team to kick in desirable prospects in addition to taking the contract?
The fact that only a few teams would be willing to absorb that salary, with the Cardinals and Giants seemingly most interested, makes it a more difficult task.
And then there’s St anton’s no-trade clause, which adds still another hurdle to getting a deal done.
All of which means Jeter probably needs to make the equivalent of his famous flip play to pull off a deal that amounts to more than a salary dump.
All of which made it fascinating to see the former Yankee Captain i n his new world, swarmed by the media on Wednesday at the GM Meetings in Orlando.
As Jeter answered questions, I half-expected him, out of sheer habit, to suddenly bring the proceedings to a halt by announcing, “Gotta go hit, buddy,” which was his go-to line to escape pre-game interviews over the years.
He resisted that urge but otherwise it sounded like the same old Jeter, courteous but exceedingly cautious in answering questions on all things Marlins.
We know by now, of course, it’s in his DNA to reveal as little as possible, and that policy served him well as shortstop for the winning-est franchise i n ba seba l l h istor y. But as the owner of the Marlins it’s not the best way to win over a disillusioned fan base that is tired of being lied to over the years.
So you can’t help but wonder how this next phase of Jeter’s charmed life is going to play out, as he goes about the task of trying to overhaul a failing franchise without being willing to come clean about it publicly.
He needs to be honest about the need to rebuild, yet on Wednesday his old Yankee instincts kicked i n and there was Jeter, insisting the Marlins could contend for a title i n 2018.
“I don’t think the World Series is an unrealistic goal going into the season,” he said. “Everyone said the Yankees were rebuilding this year and they got to within a win of the World Series.
“I don’t ever go into a season saying this or that is going to happen. You play the games, you put the best players on the field, and anything is possible. But I don’t go into anything saying that we’re going to lose.”
That supreme confidence is part of what made Jeter great as a player, but it only made him sound a bit delusional in his new role as owner, especially in making any sort of comparison with his old team.
The Yankees may have been a surprise team in 2017, but no one disputed that they had a lot of impressive young talent and more of it on the way from an acclaimed farm system.
The Marlins have none of that. They basically need to start over, and their payroll limitations make it practically impossible to have a $30-million-a-year player on the roster unless they could surround him with young, cheap homegrown talent — which they don’t have at the moment.
With all of this in mind, you’d think the new owner would have reached out to his superstar slugger, who has been quoted saying he doesn’t want to be part of a rebuild, to talk shop.
Isn’t that one of the benefits of having an owner who had a Hall of Fame career himself? That he can relate to a player like Stanton and talk comfortably with him about such a delicate situation? et Jeter on Wednesday said he hadn’t been in contact with Stanton because he saw no reason to at the moment. Well, one reason to is that the no-trade clause gives the player the ultimate say in any potential deal, and Jeter needs to know what his player is thinking about all of that.
Yes, this is fascinating, all right. As a player Jeter always had all the right answers. As an owner of the Marlins, it clearly won’t be quite so easy.
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