Playing hard to get this offseason won’t benefit prized Miami Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton much.
Stanton is being shopped by Miami, and has numerous teams looking to throw some pretty big assets their way to get him. But Stanton has a no-trade clause, and reports have shown he’s not afraid to use it if he’s about to be shipped somewhere he doesn’t like.
Enter the Marlins with a counter argument.
The alternative for Stanton, of course, is staying in Miami. And as the Miami Herald’s Clark Spencer reports, the Marlins would be willing to keep Stanton and trade other players to reduce the payroll as part of their ensuing rebuild should they not get much benefit out of trade proposals to destinations the outfielder would go to.
“According to two sources with knowledge of discussions,” Spencer wrote, “The Marlins informed Stanton in October that if he refused to waive his no-trade rights and accept a trade, he would remain a Marlin and team officials would look to trade off other top players to reduce payroll.
“While it wasn’t presented to Stanton as an ultimatum,” a source told Spencer, “It shows that the Marlins aren’t without leverage in their efforts to deal Stanton and relieve them of the financial burden he brings. Stanton has said he doesn’t wish to be part of a rebuild.”
This is compelling given that reports as recent as Monday state that Stanton does not want to make any moves until he knows if he can go to the Los Angeles Dodgers or not. In that sense, there is not much he can do in the form of coercing the Marlins into sending him west if the deal isn’t right for Miami.
