While Giancarlo Stanton was edged out by Clayton Kershaw in the National League MVP voting last week, Stanton is all set to take the crown for the MVC (Most Valuable Contract) award. OK, so no trophy is given out for that one, but with Stanton reportedly agreeing on a contract that will pay him $325 million for the next 13 years, he might be able to buy all the trophies he wants. While he wouldn't earn as much on an annual basis as Kershaw or Miguel Cabrera, the $325 million total doesn't just top baseball, but all sports, going back to the first Neanderthal man who bragged about the distance from which he could hit a mammoth with a rock.
The bigger question: Is Stanton really worth that? While we'll know how the potential deal will have turned out in, oh, about 2027, that's a long time to wait to sate our curiosity. By 2027, after all, we may be enslaved by superintelligent computers forcing us to toil in their silicon mines, leaving us little time to answer this question.
That ($325 million) is a lot of money, as you already have concluded, and it would be paid out by Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, who has paid a smaller sum total on the Marlins' payroll over the past five seasons. When an owner such as Loria, who squeezes every penny until Abe Lincoln screams, shells out this much dough, it might not be completely crazy.
First place to start is to run a long-term projection for Stanton.
The story the projection system sees for Stanton over the next decade is hardly an unusual one. A feared slugger in a low-offense era playing well for the rest of his 20s and then entering a long, slow decline as his batting average and defense begin to drop off after 30. Assuming each win above replacement costs $6 million in the free-agent market this offseason, and with 5 percent yearly overall salary growth, plus taking into account that Stanton would have been arbitration-eligible the first two seasons, ZiPS values a 13-year contract for Stanton at $316 million on the open market, not too much below that $325 million figure.
What makes this a reasonable contract -- more akin to the first big Alex Rodriguez contract rather than the far riskier contracts of Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, A-Rod's second deal and now Miguel Cabrera's extension -- is age. While age can be overrated in the short term, it's a very big deal when we're talking long-term contracts. The end of Stanton's contract isn't likely to be pleasant, but the Marlins get a lot of years before Stanton hits his mid-30s. In essence, the team is actually paying for future performance rather than past performance, as a lot of these megadeals do. Make Stanton three years older, replacing his ages 25-27 seasons with ages 38-40 seasons, and that valuation drops all the way to $203 million, a drop of more than a third of the value. Another two years added to Stanton's age drops it again, to $146 million.
Stanton's deal has yet to be finalized, but there are two more hiccups that haven't been set in stone: a no-trade clause and an opt-out clause. These aren't likely as big a deal for the Marlins as one might believe. Players with no-trade clauses are regularly traded, and if four years from now the Marlins are holding another fire sale, Stanton would likely be open to moving to a different team rather than spending another several years being the main attraction of a last-place team. And by the time his play has likely declined enough that the Marlins would like to move his contract, he'd probably be at the point where he's a 10/5 guy (10 years in the majors, five with current team), and those guys have automatic no-trade coverage anyway.
The opt-out works similarly. In most long-term contracts, the production the team actually wants is in the front of the deal and the part that's more generous to the player is in the back end. If Stanton opts out, it will mean that he would have been good enough to believe he can extract more money in his next deal, which would indicate that the Marlins got a really good deal over the first X years of his contract. Assuming an opt-out after five years, with Stanton entering his age-30 season, even if he's playing better than projected, he's a much less valuable player in the long term than he is today. The Yankees didn't suffer from Rodriguez or CC Sabathia having opt-out clauses; they suffered because they actually extended both players as a result.
The Marlins seem prepared to spend a lot, but they also get a lot, the best years of one of the most feared power hitters in baseball. A lot of big contracts end in tears, but this one might be one of those welcomed exceptions.