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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10 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.
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