Obviously the title is a rhetorical question. There are plenty of reasons why Stanton doesn't play for the Cubs with the simplest being that the Marlins own his rights, he is a tremendously talented baseball player, and, like other teams, the Marlins like having tremendously talented baseball players.
The title is there to get your creative juices flowing. This fine piece on Fangraphs explains why the Marlins are overwhelmingly unlikely to keep Stanton long-term. Simply put, he is about to cost the team a whole boatload of money before they're likely to be very good. Further, Stanton is unlikely to sign an extension in Miami given his public frustration with the team's progress or lack thereof. In almost every regard, dealing Stanton is the correct move for the Marlins and dealing him sooner rather than later makes sense for two reasons. First, it maximizes the return given that Stanton has three remaining years of team control. Second, it minimizes Miami's risk that Stanton suffers a serious injury, not an insignificant concern in light of Stanton's hobbled past.
The Cubs and Marlins appear to be on very similar trajectories. Both teams have been staples in the top-10 of the draft and will be for the foreseeable future. Both teams have amassed enviable stocks of prospect talent. And both teams are going to be really, dreadfully bad in 2014. 2015 appears to be a year of hope for both franchises with 2016 circled on the calendar as the year of competitiveness.
Again like the Cubs, the Marlins have some incredible strengths in their farm system that highlight a serious weakness. For the Cubs, offensive talent - particularly in the infield - is a cause for hope while high-level pitching is still lacking, despite an influx of solid pitching depth. For the Marlins, there is some outfield talent and an embarrassment of pitching riches with infield talent almost completely absent.
(A favorite proposal of mine - a one-for-one deal of Albert Almora for Andrew Heaney - still makes sense given the respective systems)
With that in mind, the Cubs and Marlins are very well suited to match up for a massive trade. The proposed deal:
Cubs Get
OF Giancarlo Stanton
Marlins Get
OF Albert Almora
2B/SS Arismendy Alcantara
1B Dan Vogelbach
SP Neil Ramirez
Why the Marlins Do It
The Marlins are well positioned to compete in 2016. They have a heaping mound of pitching prospects with Andrew Heaney, Justin Nicolino, Adam Conley, and Anthony DeSclafani all poised to join reigning Rookie of the Year ace Jose Fernandez and oft-overlooked 24-year-old stud Henderson Alvarez. They have the pieces to have a top of the league rotation in just a couple of years. They also have three plus young outfielders already at the MLB level in Stanton, Christian Yelich, and Jake Marisnick.
The problem lies in the infield. Miami drafted Colin Moran sixth overall last June and they hope to see him manning 3B by the end of next year. However, even if Moran makes it, the rest of the infield is a barren wasteland. There are no players who project as even average contributors in the system.
This deal would solve that in a hurry. Alcantara is a consensus top-100 prospect in MLB (BP: #83. MLB.com: #89) with a five-tool profile that includes some surprising pop and excellent speed. Although he plays 2B in the Cubs' system, he would likely be viewed as an adequate SS just about anywhere else. He should see MLB playing time by this summer, ready to grab a full-time job in 2015 as a leadoff or #2 hitter with plus defense. He plugs a major hole for the Fish.
Vogelbach is a polarizing prospect because he will never be a defensive asset. However, few 20-year-olds have a bat that scouts universally agree will play at the highest level. Vogelbach combines power, hit, and an advanced approach to project as a true asset with his 1B defense and lack of speed curtailing his overall projection. Still, he would take what has been a gaping hole for the Marlins for years (sorry LoMo) and plug it with a big bat.
Neil Ramirez gets thrown into this deal to give the Marlins another interesting piece and because these deals always seem to involve at least four prospects changing hands.
Nonetheless, the marquee acquisition is Almora. The South Florida native is a consensus top-50 prospect (BP: #25. MLB.com: #18) with enough tools plus serious baseball skills that combine for an excellent profile. Almora can hit, projects to add some pop, runs well enough, and covers CF at a high level. The Marlins do have Marcell Ozuna but it remains to be seen whether he will ever get on base enough to play. That question is rarely asked of Almora, who would provide Miami with a face-of-the-franchise type talent given his roots and projection.
The Marlins can't hope to get much more for Stanton than a top-50 prospect (Almora), a top-100 prospect (Alcantara), a top-150 prospect (Vogelbach), and a wild card (Ramirez), especially as Stanton approaches massively expensive years.
Why the Cubs Do It
The superstar. The chance to acquire a player of Stanton's caliber for an extended period of time presents itself maybe once or twice each generation. The Marlins have been the most recent team to ship out a superstar, doing so twice with the deals of Josh Beckett and Miguel Cabrera. The Red Sox and Tigers rode Beckett and Cabrera to four World Series appearances (in the case of Boston, Beckett and then the return for Beckett).
The Cubs have loudly amassed a great collection of high-profile offensive talent. While some of that talent will make it to the highest level, some will not. At some point, cashing in some of the trade chips makes sense. I generally think that the Cubs should wait to see what talent develops, but Stanton presents an exception, a generational power hitting force with on-base ability to boot.
Plugging Stanton into the Cubs' lineup provides the club with a quintet of All-Star caliber position players in addition to some remaining lottery tickets. Obviously the proposed trade above does not include Javier Baez or Kris Bryant. Both players are too close to the Majors to be flipped a la Wil Myers (an awful trade for the Royals the moment it happened) and the proposed package is plenty fair without them. If the Cubs do include Baez or Bryant, they merely fill one hole by creating another.
If the above trade goes down, the Cubs could field the following lineup by June 2014:
CF Ryan Sweeney/Junior Lake
SS Starlin Castro
2B Javier Baez
RF Giancarlo Stanton
1B Anthony Rizzo
LF Kris Bryant
3B Mike Olt
C Welington Castillo
Wow! Sweeney is the oldest member of the group at 29 and Castillo becomes the elder statesman among regulars at 27. Olt faces the pressure cooker at 25 with Christian Villanueva on his heels and Baez and Bryant both capable of handling 3B. The incredible trio of Stanton, Rizzo, and Castro all check in at 24 while Bryant (22) and Baez (21) remain the babies. The core of Stanton, Baez, Bryant, Rizzo, and Castro could conceivably spend the better part of a decade together with the team only needing to fill in around them. Further, such a lineup would give the front office a few years to replenish the farm system while budding stars manned the everyday lineup.
Building the lineup in this way would have the hidden benefit of clarifying the organization's method and timeline for obtaining pitching talent. By putting together a lineup of inexpensive star-caliber players, the club could focus on free agency to acquire pitching talent, making runs at next winter's big arms like Homer Bailey, Justin Masterson, Max Scherzer, Jon Lester, and even James Shields. Signing even one of those starters along with the inevitable Jeff Samardzija extension (Shark will almost certainly stay if the team acquires Stanton) gives the club a rotation of Samardzija-FREE AGENT-Jackson-Wood-COMPETITION over the next couple of years, certainly enough to compete with a vastly improved bullpen and potentially explosive lineup. The finances make it plenty workable.
Wait, Really? How Would the Finances Work?
I'm glad you asked! For the sake of argument, let's assume that the trade is consummated as listed above and that the Cubs respond by signing two pitchers to large contracts: a 5 year, $70M extension for Samardzija (covering '15-'19 at $10M for '15 and $15M per year afterward) and a 5 year, $90M deal for Homer Bailey (covering '15-'19 at $18M per year). The 2015 commitments by position group and projected/actual salary would be as follows (my best estimates for the arbitration salaries and spots where the club will pursue free agents):
C: $3.6M. Castillo ($2.2M), Kottaras ($1.4M)
IF: $14.1M. Rizzo ($5M), Baez ($0.55M), Castro ($6M), Olt ($0.55M), Villanueva ($0.55M), Veteran free agent ($2M)
OF: $14.7M. Stanton ($11M), Sweeney ($2M), Bryant ($0.55M), Lake ($0.6M), Szczur ($0.55M)
SP: $46M. Samardzija ($10M), Bailey ($18M), Jackson ($11M), Wood ($5.5M), Arrieta ($1.5M)
RP: $16.2M. Veras ($5.5M - club option amount), Strop ($1.8M), Vizcaino ($1.6M), Russell ($2.2M), Grimm ($0.55M), Ramirez ($0.55M), Veteran free agent ($4M)
The above roster would count a total of $94.6M. Some of the estimates are tricky - particularly arbitration raises for Stanton, Wood, Castillo, and Arrieta - but $94.6M is a strong estimate for this roster in 2015.
If the Chicago Cubs can't afford a $94.6M MLB payroll in 2015, they may want to rethink the business that they're in.
As the young offensive talent starts getting expensive when the extensions for Rizzo and Castro escalate, Stanton signs a megadeal, and Baez, Bryant, Lake, and Castillo get into the arbitration system, the contract for Jackson will have expired and Bailey's and Samardzija's will be nearing their end. This is an eminently responsible trajectory for the club to take. I'm not sure that the above roster has enough pitching to scare opponents, but average pitching, solid defense, and excellent offense tends to be a recipe for strong seasons particularly considering that the first "wave" of pitching talent should be heading to Chicago around that time in the form of Pierce Johnson, C.J. Edwards, Corey Black, Ivan Pineyro, and Rob Zastryzny.
There are additional sources of expenditures that must be considered, but none of them should stop this plan. For example, the Cubs will eat $14.5M of dead money in 2014, but that number - as of now - drops to $0 in 2015. Looking at the current roster, it is difficult to imagine the team eating money to shed a contract this season. Their spending on the amateur draft and in the international free agent market are capped by the collective bargaining agreement, although the Cubs could employ an extreme spending strategy similar to the one used in 2013 in either avenue (and, hopefully, more efficiently than they did in 2013...but that's another story). The team owes Cuban signees Jorge Soler and Gerardo Concepcion only $2.6M in '15 and $3.6M in '16, the last year of Concepcion's flop of a deal. Soler provides a nice cushion; if Mike Olt can't hack it at 3B, Bryant can slide back to the infield with Soler taking his corner outfield spot. It's important to maintain a strong pipeline.
Simply put, trading for Giancarlo Stanton makes tons of sense from baseball and business perspectives. It makes sense for the Cubs and for the Marlins too, possibly putting the clubs on a postseason collision course with each other.
There is substantial risk for the Cubs in acquiring a player who has missed 85 games over the past two seasons. But the reward of acquiring a 24-year-old with a .265/.354/.535 MLB line including an 11.2% walk rate, a .270 ISO, a huge arm, and a projected 2014 line of .272/.371/.564 including 35 more home runs is undeniably worth it. If anyone is worth such a big risk, it's Stanton.
To answer the question from the title: I don't know. It just makes too much sense for the teams to make the deal.
