San Francisco Giants: Don’t stress about landing Giancarlo Stanton

The San Francisco Giants are all wrapped up in Giancarlo Stanton rumors, and it has plenty of the fanbase constantly updating twitter to check at what’s going on. But don’t stress. If the Giants don’t land Stanton, it can still be a good thing.

The San Francisco Giants talked like they wanted to be playing late in October at the beginning of the year. They ended up sitting on their couches watching the Dodgers and Astros slug it out in an all-timer of a seven game World Series. Too many talking heads, fans, podcasters, and writers said something to the tune of “that’s why the Giants need Giancarlo Stanton” after every home-run. With it being a record for homers in a World Series, the twitter timelines were flooded. But, I’m here to be that annoying person that screams, “IT’S OK IF THEY DON’T GET STANTON!”

Look. The San Francisco Giants can more than adequately plug a few holes with the type of money they’d have to give to Stanton. If Stanton had a 5 year $175 million contract attached to him, I’d be less worried about taking the money on. But that contract leftover is INSANE. Giancarlo himself has the earliest opt-out point, which is 2021. He can opt out any year after that. But if he stays, he gets to make BANK.

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The Giants NEED power. They do. I get that. I’m all aboard the “Power-Train.” CHOO-CHOO. However, they can get a few pieces with more pop than what they have, for the same price as Stanton, with less years of commitment.

I hate commitment, at least in sports. Commitment gets you sour grape contracts like Matt Cain‘s, like Barry Zito‘s, like all the Barry Bonds years. Commitment. You commit that much money to one player, for that long, you’re going to have issues. You can’t keep yourself a contender like that. That is unless the Giants have aspirations to be in the Luxury Tax for years like the Red Sox, Dodgers, and Tigers (who, by the way, are god-awful now, and are stuck with an aging Miguel Cabrera at $30million a year). If that’s how the Giants want to become contenders, then by all means.

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But if they want to continue to trot out this “We want to stay under the Luxury Tax” montra, while the big time free agent prices are pushing them into the Luxury Tax, then they have to stop giving bad contracts. At the moment, Cueto’s contract has a 50/50 chance at being a “bad contract.” The Mark Melancon contract looks terrible as well. Hunter Pence‘s looks bad now, but we got some good out of it from 2014-2016. Stanton’s contact could very well be a bad contract.

Stanton may be great until he’s 34, which is usually the range for the dying off in ability of some of the top level players. The issue is, unless he chooses to retire with his decline in ability, he’s going to keep opting in to make that cool $32 million a year until he’s 37 or 38! That’s potentially a bad contract.

With $32 million a year, according to Spotrac’s Market Value predictor, the Giants could sign Austin Jackson, Todd Frazier, and Addison Reed, filling three major needs (CF, 3B, LHRP), for just roughly $1.5 more than that $32 million a year.

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The question then becomes, what brings them more wins? That’s simply going to be up to the franchise to figure out. The Giants could still get better in more places for the price of one player, who I’m still bullish on just how much improves the offense. More homers? Sure. But does more homers lead to more wins? It seems like just a simple one stop shop band-aid fix. That’s what the front office thought last year though. And we know where “band-aid fixes” get us. 98 losses is what it gets us.

Truly, I would love the Giants to land Giancarlo Stanton. But I’m just here to say, “IT’S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD IF THEY DON’T!