The state of baseball lies in one man's hands. A man who hit 59 home runs last season and also has the biggest contract in sports with $325 million. This man is Giancarlo Stanton.
Stanton is the current National League MVP in the MLB and is coming off his best season yet with the Miami Marlins, but he wants out.
“I don't want to rebuild.” said Stanton in an interview with FanRag sports. “I’ve lost for seven years.”
The Marlins agreed that it is time for the big slugger to leave the beaches of Miami and have been looking to trade Stanton to many major league teams, but trading Stanton to the wrong team could ruin the balance of baseball for quite some time.
Some of the top candidates for Stanton to land have been the Giants, Cardinals, Dodgers, Yankees and Red Sox.
Any team dreams of gaining a 28-year-old MVP winner in his prime, and each team makes a case why they should land him and why it might hurt the game of baseball.
The Giants finished as one of the worst teams in baseball this season and have a lot of older talent on the team but lack prospects that could be offered for Stanton. On top of that, Stanton is not going to be happy playing for a bad team, it's a lose-lose situation for the Marlins and Stanton
The Red Sox are in the same boat, except they are a better team at the moment than the Giants.
The Cardinals are the best team for Stanton to go to in the sense that it will make the league the fairest. The Cardinals were the third-place team in the National League Central division, but with Stanton, could easily take the pennant.
The Cardinals trade would not only give the Cardinals a playoff chance, it would also give Stanton a team that could contend for a title. But this most likely will not happen.
The two teams left are the Dodgers and the Yankees. In other words, the worst place for the MLB that Stanton could end up.
The Dodgers and the Yankees are two of the richest teams in baseball. The Yankees are known for their 27 championships, most of which were won due to their riches buying them players.
If Stanton goes to either one of these teams baseball will fall back into the dark ages of buying championships.
The Dodgers and Yankees are full of star power already. Dodgers have Clayton Kershaw, Yu Darvish, Cody Bellinger and Justin Turner, to just name a few.
After losing in the World Series, the acquisition of Stanton could push them over the edge, and they'd go from losing the World Series to winning the next five.
Same goes for the Yankees. Stanton hitting with Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez, on a team that made it to playoffs, would not look good for the league.
However, the trade would look great for the teams and players involved.
The Dodgers or the Yankees would get Stanton, making them almost automatic World Series Champions.
Stanton would be on a winning team.
And the Marlins would get plenty of young prospects to begin their rebuild.
Everyone wins, except every single other fan in the MLB.
There is no chance that we will see Stanton stay on the Marlins by the time pitchers and catchers report in the spring. The next few months will be scary to see where he ends up landing.
In the end, one man will decide how the 2018 MLB season will go. And we, as fans, can only sit back and wait to see where he digs in his cleats.
