As we all know by now, Giancarlo Stanton this week tweaked his good leg, plunging himself back into the Yankee Limbo of the Lost, his hot tubbed home since April. The Yankees claim he might return in September. Ha ha. We know otherwise.
He's toast.
Next time we see him will be mid-February. He'll arrive in Tampa in a swirl of ink and ether. The Gammonites will assemble, and he'll toss out quotes like shelled peanuts to a murder of crows. He'll say he spent the winter working to improve his flexibility and prevent injuries. And for the 11th straight spring, they'll peck at the ground and chew. Meanwhile, we will ponder his existential questions.
1. Will Giancarlo return?
Nope. Why drag this out? The Yankees will owe him only $15 million next year. That's clam dip money. (The Marlins will pay $10 million.) They can buy him out for 2028, and our long national Yankee nightmare will be over.
2. Could he return elsewhere?
Maybe. He might even bat in a Grapefruit game, auditioning for the Angels, Marlins, Padres or any team that might take him in a city where he wants to play. He's earned that shot. But the Yankees do not - and will not - need a fulltime DH who is always one step away from the glue factory. They will have no place for him. (I assume he wouldn't go for the Mets or Boston, but sometimes, when longtime stars hit their twilight, things do get acrimonious.)
3. Does Giancarlo belong in the Hall?
Moreover, his time in NYC produced nothing that matters. (Translation: No ring.) And though he had a couple nice playoff games, his .254 postseason BA doesn't leap out.
Maybe 20 years from now, a doddering Veterans Committee votes him in. But we won't live to see it, and unless he gets heathy, Giancarlo might not, as well.
4. Did the Yankees win the trade to bring him to NY?
Yes. Definitely. We gave up Starlin Castro, Jorge Guzman and Jose Devers. None turned out to matter. So, yeah. We won. Whoopie. (But all that money we spent? It tied us up for a decade. Imagine the free agents we missed.)
4. Was he a great Yankee?
Yeah, I guesso, sorta, anways... He should get something - a plaque or maybe a vending machine - in Monument Park. They should give him a final Bobblehead Night and present him with a fully-charged grampa scooter. He can fly around the bases.
He deserves a shot on the YES team. Could he be a batting coach? They say he commands respect in the clubhouse. There might be a role for him to play, and I hope the Yankees treat him with dignity. (Unless he joins the Mets. In that case, open the Epstein files.)
Sad day, overall. But honestly, he's done, and it feels as if a big stone has been lifted. I wish him the best. He'll never swing a bat for us in a real game again. Samuel Beckett saw the future. We were always just living it out. The Giancarlo show is over. Somebody, buy me a drink.
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16 comments:
Off topic - anyone see Sasha Gray’s line so far this year?
If Stanton were honorable, he'd retire now and forgo the stolen paychecks.
He has no shame.
16 -3
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/grayso01.shtml
If he retires, he doesn’t get paid.
Never wanted him here. Yes, he was highly productive, but only intermittently.
His contract has been a millstone around the team’s neck.
So many possibilities...
I mentioned earlier that I'd hate to say that the Yankees and Stanton are colluding, engaging in a little light insurance fraud. So I won't.
Weathers to IL with flexor strain. As always, difficult to believe anything this organization says when it comes to injuries.
Full disclosure: I love any post that includes "a murder of crows."
Fuller disclosure: I thought they should get Stanton back in 2018, even over J.D. Martinez, who was a free agent. Actually, I saw no reason why they couldn't get both, but of course that was being unfair to Foodstamps Hal.
But getting Martinez would've been an infinitely smarter move. It would've meant not only acquiring someone who was able to stay on the field—and hit much, much better than Stanton—but also depriving the Red Sox of same.
It would've changed everything...
The only thing I would dispute with our Peerless Leader is his calling Stanton a great Yankee. No, he's not. Go to Baseball Reference, and look up all the team Top Tens for the Yanks.
The ONLY one where Stanton ranks is strikeouts. He is 9th, with 948, despite all his limited playing time. That's all.
The same fraud that got him all the money in the world kept him off the field. Well, that's the trade-off. I doubt if he minds much...which is all the worse.
Yes, Stanton a great Yankee? Hahahahahahaha!!!
He should something more from the Yankees? How 'bout a very large vat of Ben Gay?
Actually, he will get something more from the Yankees. Cashman will undoubtedly sign the brittle bastard to a new four year contract at 20 mil per year.
This guy sucks. He has pretty much sucked during his Yankee tenure. Sure, there were a couple of hot streaks here or there. A couple of big playoff games here or there. But all I remember are the endless strikeouts. The swinging at pitches in the left hand batter's box. That's when he was playing. Mostly, I remember him for the endless disabled list stints. And to think that we might have to endure another half decade of this nonsense because of fucking Cashman. I'm serious, Cashman might re-up this guy. That's what Cashman does.
I think the guy hasn't quit because he sincerely wants to play. And perform. That doesn't mean he hasn't been a millstone in a variety of ways, all of them enumerated by everyone here. It's really just a shame he hasn't been able to stay even reasonably healthy, because he is a real presence in the clubhouse and at the plate. And we could have used his power numbers this year.
But yeah, he seems done, at least for the Yankees.
One of the biggest mistakes, in retrospect, that Cashman has ever made. I blame him for this situation, and everything else over the past 25 years. The worst GM in Yankees history.
I remember a time when we all said this guy is the greatest garbage time hitter we've ever seen. When we were losing 10-0, and he came up in the 8th or 9th inning, you knew for sure he'd hit a home run. So it's really cracks me up, that now, he's thought of as some kind of great clutch hitter, a hitting guru. LOL!!!
Steroids made his career.
Steroids ended his career.
All of his injuries while a Yankee == steroids.
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