Five reasons not to like Giancarlo Stanton’s deal

Giancarlo Stanton had a big decision to make at the tender age of 17.

Stanton was a highly recruited wide receiver out of Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, Calif., and signed a letter of intent to play at Southern California. He also had as much raw power potential as any high school baseball player in the country and the Florida Marlins selected him in the second round of the 2007 draft.

Baseball won out when the Marlins agreed to pay Stanton a $475,000 signing bonus.

“The opportunity I had, though, with baseball was just too great to pass up, both athletically and economically,” Stanton said at this year’s All-Star Game in Minneapolis.

That signing bonus looks like tip money now as the 25-year-old right fielder has agreed to terms with the Miami Marlins on a 12-year, $325 million contract. It is the largest contract in North American professional team sports history.

The contract will carry through the 2026 season and contains an out clause that Stanton can exercise after the 2020 season.

Here are five reasons this contract won’t end up looking so good by the time it expires in the middle of the next decade:

1. Stanton is 25 and should seemingly be coming into the prime years of his career. However, unless he uses the out clause, Stanton will be 36 in the last year of the contract.

Stanton hit 37 home runs this year to lead the National League, but it is hard to envision him still being able to keep up that pace by the latter stages of his deal.

There have been 98 times in major league history in which a hitter between the ages of 34 and 36 has had a 30-home run season. However, 42 of them came from 1995 to 2005 during the so-called Steroid Era, and there have been just 18 in the decade since Major League Baseball began tested for performance-enhancing drugs.

At 6 feet 6 and 240 pounds, Stanton is an imposing physical presence, but age eventually catches up to everybody.

2. Stanton played in 145 games and had a career-high 638 plate appearances this year, but there are some questions about his durability.

He was limited to 123 games in 2012 and 116 games in 2013 because of a variety of nagging ailments. The most notable were loose bodies in his right knee, an injury that needed to be repaired by arthroscopic surgery.

To his credit, Stanton changed his workout regimen last offseason and played in every game this year until Sept. 11, when he was hit in the face by a pitch from Milwaukee Brewers right-hander Mike Fiers.

Stanton sat out the final 16 games after suffering facial fractures and significant dental damage.

When a team is paying someone $325 million, it is expecting him to play 162 games a season, so Stanton — even though the money is guaranteed — must remain motivated to stay in top shape.

3. There is always a question of how a hitter will bounce back after suffering a severe beaning, and it is no different in Stanton’s case.

Stanton said last month that he felt no aftereffects from being hit in the face and would be ready to go when spring training started in February. Almost any hitter, when pressed, will admit that deep down there is always the fear of being hit in the face.

We won’t know for sure whether Stanton will be able to overcome it until he gets into the batter’s box in spring training.

4. Stanton’s career statistics could be hurt by committing long term to the Marlins.

Marlins Park is a big yard, playing 340 feet to left field — Stanton is a right-handed hitter — 415 feet to center and 335 to right field. According to Baseball Info Solutions, home runs have been depressed by 28 percent in Miami over the last three seasons.

Bill James, the godfather of Sabermetrics, calculates that Stanton has a 4 percent chance of reaching 700 home runs but no chance of breaking Barry Bonds’ record of 762. It seems the odds would be better in a different home park.

5. The Marlins have been in existence since just 1993 yet have a long history of trading high-salaried players. That is why Stanton insisted the Marlins go against club policy and include a complete no-trade clause in the contract.

That’s a great deal for Stanton, but it leaves the Marlins with no leverage if they decide they want to use him as a trade chip to jump-start yet another rebuilding process or if they simply want to offload the contract because it has become onerous.
—

Senior writer John Perrotto is The Sports Xchange’s baseball insider. He has covered Major League Baseball for 27 seasons.