If the Giancarlo Stanton-Miami Marlins relationship was the equivalent of a high school romance, the news that they’re breaking up is already out. Other teams are already asking Stanton to dinner and possibly even the movies afterward. Much like the recently-become-single lady in this analogy, Stanton has a no-trade clause, meaning if he doesn’t want to go to the movie, or even have dinner with any of the teams to which the Marlins might want to trade him, he doesn’t have to.
It’s already public that Stanton isn’t interested in two of the teams courting him, both considered front runners to be able to feasibly land him: The Red Sox and Cardinals. Obviously, that can still change, similar to how Justin Verlander reportedly had no interest in going to Houston until he actually went out there and changed his mind.
Bob Nightengale came on Gary & Larry recently and compared Verlander’s path to the Astros and an eventual World Series ring to the road ahead in the Giancarlo Stanton sweepstakes.
“I think it’s gonna take awhile. Let’s face it, some other team finds out the Dodgers aren’t interested, then [Stanton’s] like ‘ok, I might want to go other places.’ But it could be like Justin Verlander. Verlander didn’t want to go to Houston. He wanted to go to the Dodgers and the Yankees were his second choice and the Cubs were his third. But that was when he came out there.”
According to Nightengale and his calculations, don’t expect Stanton to hoist another team’s jersey at his welcome press conference soon.
“I think it’s going to come down to that with Stanton. Whether it’s a San Francisco or St. Louis and they say ‘this is what we’ve got, sleep on it, take some time on it. So I could see this thing dragging into December, maybe even January.”
For Nightengale’s comments on the the above topic, fast forward to 10:20.