Stanton Clears Waivers

[Angel Oracle]

If we were talking about either a 2B or 3B with say 7 years/$150 million remaining and no older than 28/29, I would be all over that.    OF though is a future strength of this team (Trout, Calhoun, and eventually Hermosillo, Jones, Marsh, and Adell).

But $300+ million is a lot to invest in a player coming in from elsewhere.   How many of those long expensive contracts for other teams' FAs, or acquired via trade, truly work out?

[Stradling]

There's never been a contract like that traded, probably not within $100 million.  The closest I can think of was Arod and was that even $150 million remaining?

[totdprods]

3 minutes ago, Stradling said:

There's never been a contract like that traded, probably not within $100 million.  The closest I can think of was Arod and was that even $150 million remaining?

It would really be unprecedented. 
Should the Angels even be in the mix, there's so many different ways it could go. Do they try to take on Gordon's salary too to lessen the prospect load?
Do they do something similar to the Cole Hamels - Matt Harrison trade, and take on another Marlins player just to absorb even more salary, perhaps exchanging some short-term salary back to Miami?

Does a third team enter the fold? Do the Angels tempt the Marlins by offering a handful of their iffier arbitration/out-of-options players in return to avoid prospects, open up some roster flexibility and lessen their prospect cost? 

There are all sorts of strange paths that can be taken.

[Stradling]

2 minutes ago, totdprods said:

It would really be unprecedented. 
Should the Angels even be in the mix, there's so many different ways it could go. Do they try to take on Gordon's salary too to lessen the prospect load?
Do they do something similar to the Cole Hamels - Matt Harrison trade, and take on another Marlins player just to absorb even more salary, perhaps exchanging some short-term salary back to Miami?

Does a third team enter the fold? Do the Angels tempt the Marlins by offering a handful of their iffier arbitration/out-of-options players in return to avoid prospects, open up some roster flexibility and lessen their prospect cost? 

There are all sorts of strange paths that can be taken.

He's too good and too young not to get prospects in return even with his contract.  Our best prospects don't need to clear waivers because they aren't on the 40 man. 

[totdprods]

16 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

If we were talking about either a 2B or 3B with say 7 years/$150 million remaining and no older than 28/29, I would be all over that.    OF though is a future strength of this team (Trout, Calhoun, and eventually Hermosillo, Jones, Marsh, and Adell).

But $300+ million is a lot to invest in a player coming in from elsewhere.   How many of those long expensive contracts for other teams' FAs, or acquired via trade, truly work out?

Agreed - long-term OF definitely isn't a need, but power is glaringly absent. Even those with projectable power (Adell, Marsh) are quite a ways away, and closer guys like Thaiss may not develop legit power for a few seasons. Look how long we've waited for Cron. 

Those OF prospects could also turn into premium trade bait in another season or two, and we could have a surplus of it. And there's always the chance Calhoun/Trout are gone in a few seasons. 

It isn't necessarily the way I would proceed, but as I explained above, I feel a high-salary acquisition is in the future (be it this offseason or next) and Stanton is the steadiest potential acquisition. He has legit power which we need, is still fairly young so we'd get a bulk of his prime, he has legit right-handed power to play well in Anaheim, etc, and I could see him making sense to this FO.

[floplag]

Kinda surprising to me that noone even bothered to put in a claim.  Realistic or not in terms of trade.

[Stradling]

Well if you put in a claim on him you have to be prepared to take on the entire contract.  Because the team that put him on waivers can simply let him go to the claiming team.  He is due $300 million basically, which is the largest contract in baseball.  

[stormngt]

Just now, Stradling said:

Well if you put in a claim on him you have to be prepared to take on the entire contract.  Because the team that put him on waivers can simply let him go to the claiming team.  He is due $300 million basically, which is the largest contract in baseball.  

We should have put a claim on him.  I would have been ecstatic if the Marlins just dumped the contract on us.  Now we have to out bid people and we don't have the assets to outbid anyone.

This was a lost opportunity.  Stanton is an impact bat.  His offensive production allows us to have wraker bats at 3b and catcher.  We have our pitching staff coming back from injuries.  He makes us a world season contender this year.

We won't get him because the Cubs or the dogs may go all in for him.

[totdprods]

43 minutes ago, stormngt said:

We should have put a claim on him.  I would have been ecstatic if the Marlins just dumped the contract on us.  Now we have to out bid people and we don't have the assets to outbid anyone.

This was a lost opportunity.  Stanton is an impact bat.  His offensive production allows us to have wraker bats at 3b and catcher.  We have our pitching staff coming back from injuries.  He makes us a world season contender this year.

We won't get him because the Cubs or the dogs may go all in for him.

Still working in the Angels favor- Stanton is from LA, and has a full no-trade clause, so if he really doesn't want to leave Miami for anywhere other than home, he doesn't have to, and that could really drop the teams down to the Halos and Dodgers. The Dodgers surely have the payroll, prospects, and spot in the line-up...but, do they really need him? They're currently a historic team with a number of monstrously talented young bats - bats that will eventually cost money - and probably need to focus their efforts more on pitching in the short-term.

What do we know about the Marlins? 
They are struggling to draw fans (averaging 19k a game) and have a fairly hefty payroll in comparison, well over $100m. 
They don't have much of a farm anymore, but they do have a handful of young, cheap/controlled, good players in Yelich, Ozuna, Realmuto, Riddle. 
They have a handful of really mediocre expensive players, and they have Stanton. 

Right now, vet position players are drawing next to nothing on the trade market, so they aren't going to get anything but salary relief from moving those. 
They could rebuild the farm by dealing from the Yelich/Ozuna crop, but they'll torpedo their attendance even further. Probably not the best first impression for a new owner to go firesale with the Marlins again. So they may want to enact a plan similar to the what the Angels have been doing - go year-to-year with their payroll, fill holes with stopgaps and hope those players perform well enough around their young talent to fall into the WC race, and maybe sell a player off here or there as needed to bring in some prospects without alienating fans. 

If they go that route, they need money. Looping back to the first paragraph, that's where the Angels could step in. 
They could take Stanton and any combination of Gordon, Prado, Ziegler, Tazawa and fill OF, 3B, 2B, and RP vacancies for 2018 right now. As an Angels fan, those vets aren't exciting at all, but they would address those positions without assuming the risk of a (so-far) un-Eppler-esque 5yr/$90 Moustakas or Lorenzo Cain deal. It'd bump the payroll up to it's threshold for '18 and '19, but putting Prado in place of Escobar and Gordon in place of Cowart/Pennington/Espinosa isn't necessarily a huge step back. Within a year or two, those vets are dumped, DFAed, dealt, etc. and we still have Stanton. 

It's not an exact trade proposal - just a very loose theoretical one. And yeah, it's a huge amount of money, and probably not the best use of that payroll, but you just cleared a ton of payroll for Miami, and happened to fill 2B, 3B, OF, and possibly some RP depth in one deal, and possibly limited what you gave up in order to do so. The Marlins now have payroll flexibility to try and sign a couple middling FAs and feign competing with their young core in the immediate future - and if they are going that route, they may also have interest in getting some of our MLB-ready excess back in the deal, also saving us prospect cost. Maybe we offer back some of our '18 out of option players - Ramirez, Perez, Marte, Cron. Maybe we offer back Richards or Meyer - Richards will rake up sizable arbitration dollars for the Angels this year (and is still worth risk) and Meyer will be out of options, and would still play into the Marlins' wink at competing.

Totally crazy and unprecedented trade in terms of scale, but so were some of the massive salary exchange deals we've seen recently with Boston, LA, Atlanta, etc.
 

[floplag]

52 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Well if you put in a claim on him you have to be prepared to take on the entire contract.  Because the team that put him on waivers can simply let him go to the claiming team.  He is due $300 million basically, which is the largest contract in baseball.  

Obviously... But there are teams that could afford it and could have used him, just seems odd that noone would even take a peek is all. 

[floplag]

48 minutes ago, stormngt said:

We should have put a claim on him.  I would have been ecstatic if the Marlins just dumped the contract on us.  Now we have to out bid people and we don't have the assets to outbid anyone.

This was a lost opportunity.  Stanton is an impact bat.  His offensive production allows us to have wraker bats at 3b and catcher.  We have our pitching staff coming back from injuries.  He makes us a world season contender this year.

We won't get him because the Cubs or the dogs may go all in for him.

See me post about the front office, add this to the list.

[tdawg87]

I would take Stanton all day. It. Is. Not. My. Money.

But I understand not putting a claim in for him. 

[Stradling]

Commiting $300 million to a really good player makes sense for some teams.  But man I'd feel much better about it after a Trout extension.  

[red321]

There's a reason nobody put a claim in on him.

$295 million due to Stanton from 2018 to 2027

 

This is for a player who already has trouble staying on the field, in his early and mid twenties. (yes, I understand one season he missed time to getting hit in the head).

100, 150, 123, 116, 145, 74, 119, 115 (this year)

Angels are already on the hook for paying Pujols...I seriously doubt they would risk committing 300 million to a player who has a good chance to spend as much time on the DL as on the field. Especially when you consider they could fill multiple holes (LF, 3B, 2B, 1B, etc. etc.) with that kind of investment. 

 

 

Edited August 15, 2017 by red321

[Stradling]

I'd love to have him but it is totally reasonable to not put a claim in for an amazing player who gets hurt frequently that is owed $300 million.  That's still the largest contract in baseball history two or three years into it.  

[Angel Oracle]

Four times AFTER his rookie season, Stanton has failed to play more than 123 games.   That is a lot of DL time already at age 27.

[totdprods]

10 minutes ago, Stradling said:

Commiting $300 million to a really good player makes sense for some teams.  But man I'd feel much better about it after a Trout extension.  

Same here - but also have to wonder how a big win-now commitment like Stanton would also make Trout feel about his future here. 

[ettin]

1 hour ago, Angel Oracle said:

If we were talking about either a 2B or 3B with say 7 years/$150 million remaining and no older than 28/29, I would be all over that.    OF though is a future strength of this team (Trout, Calhoun, and eventually Hermosillo, Jones, Marsh, and Adell).

But $300+ million is a lot to invest in a player coming in from elsewhere.   How many of those long expensive contracts for other teams' FAs, or acquired via trade, truly work out?

The thing to remember too is that he can opt-out after the 2020 season as well. He makes $77M over the next three years (2018-2020) leaving $218M on his contract after the 2020 season.

Once the Trout, Machado, and Harper bars are set in extensions and/or free agency (Trout likely to hit and possibly exceed $40M per season with Harper and Machado cresting $35M+ per season), Stanton, entering his age 31 season, would still likely, assuming everything is fine performance-wise and health-wise, get $35M per season on a 7 year deal which is $245M.

Giancarlo will have an interesting decision to make at the time of his opt-out. Everything will rely upon his health and performance. If he is cracking homers, like he is this season, in 2020 then it is a no-brainer for him to opt-out which would be no sweat off the back of any team who has him because, hey, they don't have to pay the rest of that salary. Even if he chooses to not opt-out that total salary, in long-term dollars (inflation), isn't back breaking if you get at least 2-3 WAR per year out of him.

Frankly I find this whole discussion about him fascinating in terms of his worth, the opt-out question, and have we seen the best performance out of him yet as he is raking in his age 27 season. The Angels need another big bat in their lineup so here is an option that will eat up a lot of payroll and some prospect currency (likely two of our better prospects like Jahmai Jones and a starter like Barria or Long plus a couple of mid-tier pieces like one of Lund or Hermosillo and one of Nonie Williams or Leonardo Rivas for instance). It would hurt prospect wise but you have Stanton in your lineup for a minimum of 3 years, possibly more. Also if the Angels feel he will opt-out you can always trade him?

It is a real long shot though. Lot of salary and a complex issue which by its very nature makes it improbable but fun to discuss!

[totdprods]

6 minutes ago, Angel Oracle said:

Four times AFTER his rookie season, Stanton has failed to play more than 123 games.   That is a lot of DL time already at age 27.

Not exactly the same, but injury concerns are also what helped us land 28-year old Vlad. He had just missed a lot of the year with back problems and everyone was worried he'd break down from all the games on the turf. He gave us 150 games (on average) before his last season with the Angels.

[totdprods]

1 minute ago, ettin said:

It is a real long shot though. Lot of salary and a complex issue which by its very nature makes it improbable but fun to discuss!

That's really what makes this fun. Improbable things happen in baseball all the time and the Stanton situation is so extremely complicated with so many permutations in which it could go. I agree that it is next to impossible, but it's hard not to fantasize some way in which it happens. Vlad, Pujols, and Hamilton all came as complete shocks.
 

[red321]

So, what you are saying is that if he shows he's healthy and worth the money he can opt out...or if he shows he's a broken down train wreck you still are on the hook for another hundred million plus?

[Tank]

3 hours ago, Angel Dog and Beer said:

I may be the only one that's hesitant to bring him here. If he was a Trout/Harper/Arrenado/Goldschmidt-type player I would jump on it. To me, he's just a slugger who has monster power, and if he sustains an injury that saps his power his value is toast.  I just feel we'll be in the same boat as we are currently with Pujols a few years down the line.

Maybe I'm undervaluing his game, but what else does he do well? 

he has a beautiful smile.

 

 

 

 

stop judging me.

 

 

[Tank]

20 minutes ago, totdprods said:

Same here - but also have to wonder how a big win-now commitment like Stanton would also make Trout feel about his future here. 

after all the bums we've run out there during the trout era, i'd have to believe he'd be ecstatic that the team is willing to make a commitment to get a guy like stanton. it says "we want to win now and for the foreseeable future." if you're trout, you have to like that kind of move.

[red321]

2 minutes ago, Tank said:

after all the bums we've run out there during the trout era, i'd have to believe he'd be ecstatic that the team is willing to make a commitment to get a guy like stanton. it says "we want to win now and for the foreseeable future." if you're trout, you have to like that kind of move.

Or...he continues to be injured 50+ games a year and the Halos still owe him half of Fort Knox...and Trout says screw resigning with the Halos, if I sign, and they are paying Stanton a shit load of money to attend physical therapy how are they going to make the rest of the team better

[Tank]

8 minutes ago, red321 said:

Or...he continues to be injured 50+ games a year and the Halos still owe him half of Fort Knox...and Trout says screw resigning with the Halos, if I sign, and they are paying Stanton a shit load of money to attend physical therapy how are they going to make the rest of the team better

you know, your glass doesn't need to be half-empty, buddy. you can always refill it.