Armchair GM: Giancarlo Stanton May Be Less Expensive Than He Seems

Ken Rosenthal seems to think the Giants have actually submitted a trade offer to the Miami Marlins for Giancarlo Stanton.  He give no hints of any names involved except to say that the Giants are willing to take on a "sizable portion" of Giancarlo's contract which will certainly put them well over the Competitive Balance Tax(CBT) threshold.  This may be alleviated by trading 1 or more high priced current Giants players, possibly in the same deal with Stanton.

Now, notice in that discussion the Giants don't seem to be nearly as worried about what they have to pay Giancarlo was they are how much of a penalty they will have to pay for going over the CBT threshold.  Here's where Stanton's contract gives them some help.  Many analysts, including Grant Brisbee of MCC, seem to think Stanton's contract is for 10 years/$295 M and thus has an AAV which counts against the CBT of $29.5/season.  It doesn't.  The 10 years/$295 M is how much he has left on the contract, but the contract as originally signed was for 13 years/$325 M for an AAV of $25 M.  Unless they change the rules of how the CBT is calculated, even in the years he is scheduled to be paid $32 M, the CBT hit is still just $25 M.

Now, Rosenthal did not say the Giants would take on all of Stanton's contract, just a "sizable portion."  Let's say the Marlins agree to pay $50 M of Stanton's $295 M contract or $5 M per season X 10 years.  That reduces the Giants portion of the CBT hit to $20 M.  Now, let's say the Marlins also take Denard Span and the remainder of his contract exchanging short term salary for much larger long term salary relief.  The Giants are about $10 M under the CBT threshold and removing Span's contract would put them $20 M under before adding Stanton's now $20 M hit.  Voila!  The Giants have Giancarlo Stanton and are right at the CBT threshold.  See, he is affordable after all!

Of course this scenario would still leave the Giants some holes to fill, and in at least one case, backup catcher, they don't have any viable internal options, so they would still need to find additional salary relief.  I doubt the Marlins would take both Span and Pence, but that would be sweet if they did.  Unfortunately Pence has a no-trade clause and would have no reason to accept a trade to the Marlins so that's all but out as a consideration.  More likely the Giants would have to trade a Joe Panik or Brandon Belt or even Johnny Cueto or Jeff Samardzija to clear more CBT cap space but there are probably trade options available for all of those players.  I mean, once Eric Hosmer signs, Brandon Belt may seem like a cheap alternative even with the concussion history!

Of course, the Giants also have to think about extending Madison Bumgarner's contract in the next 2 years, but I'm already on record that they need to be listening to offers of MLB ready prospect packages for Bummy sooner rather than later.

********************************************************************************

Then we have the question of whether Giancarlo will provide value for the cost of his contract.  For this, we'll use the actual money he is going to be paid.  We will also use the entirety of the contract as we all know it is likely to be underwater by the time it is completed.  As we all know, Giancarlo has been injured a few times.  His fWAR in a 8 year career has ranged from 1.9-6.9 with an average right at 4.  Apparently the current value of 1 fWAR is $9 M so in an average season, he's been worth $36 M.  The 6.9 came last year for a value of a whopping $62 M.

Eno Sarris of Fangraphs posted a  couple of theoretical decay curves to show there is a good chance he will provide that value.  One optimistic, yet reasonable, curve has him starting at his projected fWAR for 2018 at 5.4 and maintaining that for 3 years, then declining on a typical aging curve over the remaining 7 years.  His total WAR value for the life of that scenario would be over $400 M.  In a less optimistic scenario, you start at 5.4 and start the decline immediately.  You still get to $293 M over the course of the contract.

Of course, he could suffer an injury in the first season that accelerates the decline and the contract ends up a bust, but that is not the most likely scenario.

*********************************************************************************

Market cost of Wins is just one way for a blind man to look at the elephant of MLB contracts.  Another way is to ask whether he will bring in at least $295 M more to the Giants over the next 10 years.  This one is impossible to know for the average fan like me.  We do know that the Giants hate empty seats in the stadium and their business model depends on fielding a competitive team, or at least an interesting team to put butts in those seats.  Last year, the Giants weren't just a bad team.  They were a boring team.  By the end of the season, we were seeing an awful lot of green space in the stands at most games.  In addition, the Giants are part owners of the TV channel that carries their games on cable/satellite TV.  That revenue stream depends on advertisers and advertisers depend on viewers and the numbers are enormous.  Then there is merchandising, and surrounding developments which depend on the foot traffic the games bring to the area.  All told, it is likely that Giancarlo would bring in more money to the Giants than he would cost.

*********************************************************************************

What about the players traded to the Marlins in a Giancarlo Stanton trade?  Unfortunately, the one name that seems to have leaked out is Heliot Ramos.  There is one and only one player in the Giants farm system I consider untouchable, and that is Heliot Ramos. I will be crushed if the Giants trade him for anything, even Giancarlo Stanton.  They could trade the entire rest of the farm system and I would not be unhappy, but please not Heliot Ramos!  Now, I freely admit that is more of an emotional reaction than a rational one, but I am irrationally exuberant about Heliot Ramos' future.  Given his last name and where he comes from, though, it makes perfect sense why Ramos is the one player the Marlins would covet the most and not just from a future performance standpoint.

From a rational viewpoint, it will be at least 4 years before Heliot Ramos appears in a MLB uniform in a regular season game and the chances of him ever having as valuable MLB career as Stanton is likely to have over the next 10 years is very small to the point of approaching zero.  So, Heliot Ramos should not be the deal breaker in the Giants quest for Giancarlo Stanton.  If the Giants have a real chance to acquire a player of his caliber, the only question they need to answer before pulling the trigger on the trade is whether they can afford to pay him for the next 10 years. The answer to that question is probably yes.