Giancarlo Stanton is joining the Yankees to form a super-team. Here’s why New York Mets fans should rejoice his Miami departure.
Say it ain’t Stanton. You turn your back for one moment and the baseball world descends into complete chaos.
Just hours after the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim shook up the MLB after surprisingly winning the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes, the New York Yankees went out and acquired the reigning National League MVP. Giancarlo Stanton now joins a 91-win team because his previous employers were desperately looking for a salary dump and the Bronx Bombers were willing to oblige.
His first major act as head of the Marlins sees Derek Jeter finding a way to help out his old club.
Are you kidding me?
Now that we’ve had a good 24 hours to process this madness, those who support that quiet team in Flushing actually can pull away the positives from watching our crosstown rival transform into a super-team. While Stanton joining forces with Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez is never something you wanted to see as a Mets fan, the Yankees are still one of the more beneficial landing spots for the MVP from our perspective.
It Could Be Worse
Last week, the Miami Marlins agreed to the framework of a deal with both the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals that would ship Stanton to one of those destinations. Unfortunately for Miami, the inclusion of a full no-trade clause in Stanton’s contract allowed him to block both potential deals. Miami’s preference, particularly to ship Stanton off to St. Louis, was rendered moot when the 28-year-old slugger vetoed that prospect and provided a list of teams he would be willing to accept trades to. On that list were the four teams who participated in the League Championship Series this past fall: the New York Yankees, Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Chicago Cubs.
First off, of those four teams, three were above .500 and two were undeniable contenders. If Stanton were to join the Cardinals, Cubs or already stacked Dodgers, it would have created a new top dog in the National League. Could you even imagine pairing Stanton with a set of sluggers like Cody Bellinger and Yasiel Puig? (Oh wait, it’s worse, he ended up with two better sluggers.)
Even the addition of Stanton to the lowly 64-win Giants could have jolted a return to the glory days of earlier this decade. The fact of the matter is that getting Stanton out of the National League benefits everyone in the National League.
The Marlins are Waving the White Flag
With the Philadelphia Phillies and the Atlanta Braves in the throngs of respective rebuilds, the Marlins were really the only other potential challenger for the NL East crown. Granted, the Mets (when healthy) and Nationals are miles ahead of the Fish in terms of roster construction, but Miami did have significant talent on the roster. I mean, they had the NL MVP. Not many guys in this league can hit 59 home runs, especially in that cavernous ballpark.
The departure of Stanton and Dee Gordon in one week represent a commitment to this team prioritizing paying down their debts over putting a good product on the field. Some will argue that it’s a shame that we have to watch this franchise ravage itself while it nickel and dimes its talent away. I say keep it coming.
A worse Marlins team means that the Mets 19 yearly matchups with them just got a whole lot easier. The Mets have averaged approximately nine losses against the Marlins since 2001. They tend to fluctuate around splitting the season series each year. I am more than ready to welcome back four or five of those games per year in favor of the Amazins’. That could very well add up as the difference in the divisional race or wild card in 2018.
As a 77-win club in 2017, the Marlins possessed some pretty good building blocks to leverage if they wanted to follow suit of the Cubs and Astros and embrace the tank. However, this deal only puts them in a worse spot than those aforementioned teams found themselves in when they took on this self-cannibalistic organizational strategy. As the fire sale in Miami rages forward, it would take a great deal to improve their current footing with a farm system that is underdeveloped and ranked as one of the worst in the league.
The Departure of a Perennial Met Killer
As division rivals, the Mets face the Marlins in six series each year. As a result, Giancarlo Stanton has become pretty familiar with the New York Mets. His 108 games against the Mets accounts for 11 percent of his career.
Given that I’m not a masochist, I don’t particularly enjoy watching this guy hit mammoth home runs against our club. Based on the 35 career homers he’s launched against the Mets, you can iron out that he would smack 53 if he played a full 162 game season against us. That’s a little much for me.
The only other team Stanton crushes on such a consistent basis is the Washington Nationals. Personally speaking, I could not be more thrilled to know that the amount of times the Mets have to face the reigning National League MVP has been reduced from 18 or 19 to four.
