Giants, rest of baseball, await trade of Miami’s Stanton.
someone call the gas company? The pilot under baseball’s hot stove has gone out.
Nearly a month has passed since the Astros won the World Series, and the trade and free-agent markets have been still. Deals that ordinarily start rolling in around Thanksgiving have not happened.
The business of building teams for next season has ground to a halt, many executives believe, because of two players: Miami right fielder Giancarlo Stanton and Japanese pitcher/outfielder Shohei Ohtani.
The Giants and other teams that are pursuing Stanton, the National League’s Most Valuable Player in 2017, are paralyzed waiting for the Marlins to decide where to deal him. The $295 million left on his contract, an opt-out and full no-trade rights make any trade extremely complex.
The Giants have been in on Stanton since the summer, recognizing how a player who hit 59 home runs last season instantly could change an offense that finished last in the majors in slugging and home runs.
Even teams with no interest in Stanton are affected by the deliberate man
ner in which the Marlins are proceeding. Many of these teams have interest in other players whom Miami expects to trade, including left fielder Marcell Ozuna and second baseman Dee Gordon, but the Marlins seem reluctant to deal them before they see what they get for Stanton, both in players and salary relief.
Meanwhile, free agents are reluctant to sign contracts before the big-money teams pursuing Stanton — such as the Giants, Cardinals, Red Sox and Dodgers — are ready to look past the Marlins and bid for them instead.
The result has been gridlock. The biggest free-agent signing was starting pitcher Doug Fister to the Rangers for one year and $3.5 million. The one trade of note has been the A’s sending Ryon Healy to the Mariners for reliever Emilio Pagan and a minor-league infielder.
“We’re just waiting for this to happen, like the rest of the industry, so we can get on with the offseason,” said one bigleague executive whose team is not believed to be pursuing Stanton.
The view that Stanton has cooled the hot stove is pervasive, though not unanimous.
Mets general manager Sandy Alderson said the early date of Thanksgiving, when talks usually slow, is another reason.
“Things have been quiet, but I don’t believe Stanton has been holding up everything,” Alderson said. “I expect activity to pick up between now and the winter meetings.”
They begin Dec. 10 in Orlando.
A native of the Los Angeles neighborhood of Panorama City, Stanton’s desire to play for the hometown Dodgers might be one reason for the drawnout trade talks. Jon Morosi of MLB.com reported Monday that the Dodgers are his first choice, and he is reluctant to approve a deal with any other club before Miami’s front office, under a new ownership group headlined by Derek Jeter, gets a true read on the Dodgers’ ability and desire to make the deal.
The Giants have a lot of work to do besides their pursuit of Stanton. They say they need a defensive upgrade in center field, a stable third baseman and bullpen help.
Like other teams, they can wait only so long for Stanton, and general manager Bobby Evans typically has concurrent trade and free-agent negotiations with other teams and players while pursuing a deal.
So the question becomes, when do they move on from Stanton? At what point do they become so anxious about filling their roster holes that they start aggressively bidding for other players and completing trades?
According to sources, the Giants are not there yet. They do not have to be because none of the other teams is rushing to complete deals, either.
A few trades could materialize by Friday’s deadline for teams to tender contracts to all of their players. Teams that plan to “non-tender” certain players usually try to trade them first to get something for them. Otherwise, the players become free agents.
The other wild card is Ohtani, the two-way Japanese player for whom all big-league teams are expected to bid. Some teams might forestall decisions on other available pitchers until Ohtani picks a team. Ohtani, though, is not expected to hold up the trade and free-agent markets the way Stanton has because, after all, teams have just one chance in 30 to land him.