Stanton In “The Trade” Unrealistic

Oct 1, 2012; Miami, FL, USA; Miami Marlins right fielder Giancarlo Stanton (27) at bat against the New York Mets at Marlins Park. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY SportsFor many fans of the Toronto Blue Jays the word unrealistic has been taken out of their vocabulary after all that’s taken place this offseason. One of the main reasons is the mega trade with the Miami Marlins where the Blue Jays increased their payroll to a franchise high and picked up 3 former All Stars.

When fans of the Blue Jays talk about “the trade” they jokingly or seriously, depending on who you talk to, say the Jays should have tried to get Giancarlo Stanton as part of it. There’s no denying that the Blue Jays getting Stanton in “the trade” would have been amazing to an Earth shattering propoprtion.

With recent rumors of Stanton being made available in a trade, it’s worth looking at why the Jays didn’t get him.

First things first the Miami Marlins motive for the trade was to dump salary. The Marlins just trying to dump salary is evident by what they accepted back from the Blue Jays.

It usually takes 3 or 4 of a team’s top 10 prospects just to get ONE great pitcher or star position player. The fact that the Marlins were fine with just 3 of the Blue Jays top 10 prospects, a backup catcher, a glove first shortstop, an average starter with no strikeout pitch, and an inconsistent “bad in the clubhouse” shortstop in exchange for 3 All-Stars and Emilio Bonafacio tells you they were just trying to get money taken off their hands.

It’s not that crazy to think that if Jose Reyes and Stanton had each other’s salaries the Blue Jays would have gotten Stanton and the Marlins would have kept Reyes.

Last season Stanton had 37 home runs, .290 average, on-base percentage of .361 with a .969 OPS. To put that in perspective, in Jose Bautista’s 2nd best season in the majors he hit 54 home runs, his batting average was .260, .378 on base percentage with a .995 OPS. Like you would imagine almost all of Bautista’s numbers are better but not by much. Bautista was 30 at the time. Stanton was 22. He’ll be 23 next season. He’s only going to get better. He gets paid the league minimum and won’t be a free agent until 2017. In other words he’s not coming cheap.

The Blue Jays would have needed to gut their farm system to get Stanton. That would have prevented them from being able to acquire Dickey and make trades at next season’s trade deadline.

If you’re thinking the Blue Jays wouldn’t have needed to gut their farm system because they could have included players from their big league roster along with less prospects in the trade that’s not true. If having legit big leaguers on the roster were enough to entice Marlins fans to come to ballpark they wouldn’t have needed to make the trade in the first place.

The Marlins are rebuilding. They don’t need strong pieces that will help them to win right now. Even if the Blue Jays offered Joey Bats himself, Edwin Encarnacion, and handled their salaries it wouldn’t make sense for the Marlins’ long term plan. It would also make the Blue Jays worse right now and they are obviously trying to win right now.

Ah well, you can’t have everything. You can just hope that Stanton has a down year next season so his trade value decreases but even that is unrealistic.