Loria/Stanton. Time for Stratergery?

Buzz, buzz, buzz.  The wires are starting to hum, no doubt brought about by the monster year that Giancarlo Stanton is having.  Talked about in hushed tones, all of baseball is fascinated by the ball-crushing power he continues to demonstrate.  Bouncing back from knee surgery, Stanton uses 400’ fences as a kind of “Minimum Acceptable Distance” guideline.  He puts them into the parking lot.  He clears fences by triple digits.  He knocks out scoreboards.  He lands balls in mezzanine bars and pools. All for less than $500k per year. He’s on a contract for $480,000 that ends this year.  While he still remains under team control until 2016, there is a possibility that he could force arbitration early by becoming eligible for Super Two status.

The key question is…What to do about extending him? Obviously, Loria and Samson aren’t going to trade him, unless they are offered something like the entire Tampa Bay roster in exchange.  Even then, one could expect torches and pitchforks outside the executive offices.  He is clearly a franchise player, and needs to reap the financial reward that his performance has earned.

Michael Jong at Fish Stripes has a pretty good analysis of the risks and rewards of contract extension vs. free agency for Stanton. Based on his performance and value to the franchise, it’s clear that he’ll be pretty well set for the foreseeable future.  Most likely, he’ll be in Miami colors for a while.