Giancarlo Stanton, OF

[Bobbob1313]

#NObama

[Namaste]

I heard there was a Beef self BURIAL in this thread and came to find I got BURIED by bobboob. Good times, boys. Good times.

[Beef]

Word travels fast

[emkayseven]

How would Giancarlo Stanton rank his home runs? How would the Beatles, in 1965, have ranked their songs? There were so many to choose from, in such a short burst, and they all seemed to be huge hits.

Stanton, the 23-year-old slugging prodigy for the Miami Marlins, plays along. He mentions a blast in Arizona against Joe Saunders, an opposite-field shot off Atlanta’s Kris Medlen and another deep drive off the Braves’ Mike Minor.

He does not refer to a shot in Colorado last summer, off Josh Roenicke, that soared 494 feet, the longest home run in the majors last season. The 462-foot screamer off the Rockies’ Jamie Moyer, which knocked out some scoreboard lights at Marlins Park?

“I don’t know,” said Stanton, who led the major leagues with a .608 slugging percentage last season. “Maybe because it was so close to the pole, I didn’t really fully feel like I got the most of that.”

The home run that resonates, Stanton said, came in 2010, his rookie year, in Philadelphia. He thought he had struck out on a foul tip, but the catcher dropped the ball. On the next pitch, Stanton took Roy Oswalt deep.

“That one I really liked, because that’s what made me grow,” Stanton said. “I thought I struck out; I was a little flustered. You learn that when something’s over with, you move on. I did that pretty quick right there.”

Moving on is a theme for Stanton this season. He understands he cannot dwell on his deep disappointment from November, when the Marlins, after finishing 69-93, gutted their roster by trading Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle and Josh Johnson to Toronto.

Stanton expressed his frustration on Twitter the night the news broke, using mild profanity in a message that others have reposted more than 14,000 times. He later expressed dismay, to MLB.com’s Peter Gammons, that the Marlins had reverted to a strategy of dumping salaries, a trademark of their 20-year existence.

“It runs against the competitive nature every athlete has, that nature that everything is about winning,” Stanton told Gammons. “This kind of thing is what gets talked about all the time around this team. Former Marlins come back and they warn us. It gets talked about during the stretch, in the clubhouse, after games, on the road. Again, I do not like this at all.”

Now, Stanton said, he has shifted his focus forward. But he still seems like an island on a team that has also traded Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez, Omar Infante, Emilio Bonifacio, John Buck and Heath Bell since last summer. Stanton said the team’s chemistry had been better than he expected, but he added that most of the teammates were unfamiliar.

“You can’t joke around like you would with guys you’ve known for years; you’re not as loose,” he said. “But at the same time, everyone’s here to get their work in, so it’s been good.”

Stanton is under the Marlins’ control through 2016, and with about two and a half years of service time, he has not been eligible for salary arbitration. Jeffrey Loria, the team owner, told reporters this week that he would not consider a contract extension for Stanton this season.

“They haven’t come to me,” Stanton said, “so I don’t have to make a decision.”

All he can do is play, and try to improve. On Thursday he looked plenty polished, lashing a triple to right-center, a double off the left-field wall and a single up the middle in a loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Hall of Famer Andre Dawson, a special assistant to the Marlins’ president, called Stanton a student of hitting. As impressive as Stanton’s batting practice can be, Dawson said, he concentrates on hitting to the opposite field, understanding that pitchers will try to beat him with pitches off the outer half of the plate.

“And, my God, the guy’s so strong, it’s inhumane,” Dawson said. “To watch him on a daily basis, consistently progressing at this level, he’s still a big kid and his ceiling is unlimited.”

Stanton hit .290 last season, with 37 homers in only 123 games. After the roster overhaul, the prevailing notion was that, with little protection in the lineup, Stanton would get few decent pitches to hit. He had a strong on-base percentage last season (.361), but has averaged roughly 1 strikeout every 3 at-bats for his career.

If pitchers try even harder to avoid him now, Stanton said, the onus is on him to stay disciplined.

“It’ll be good for me, actually, for down the road,” Stanton said. “If I can handle this at this age, that’ll just bring me to the next step as a hitter.”

The veteran infielder Greg Dobbs said pitchers fear Stanton, and work carefully around him. But if Stanton needs to adjust, Dobbs said, he probably will. He called Stanton unusually diligent for such a young player with so much talent.

Stanton said he has a fun side, too, and a sarcastic sense of humor. But he has no tolerance for joking on the field, and people sometimes tell him he does not seem to have fun playing the game.

Stanton would like to change that, to find a way to handle baseball’s inherent failure while still projecting joy. He grew up near Los Angeles wanting to be a professional athlete — in football, basketball or baseball — and now he is doing it. He wants no sympathy because a few teammates have been traded.

“There’s plenty of other people in much worse situations than I am,” Stanton said. “I play a kid’s game. There’s difficulties in all parts of life, but you’ve got to deal with them.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/sp...lins.html?_r=0

[dim]

1000

[emkayseven]

No doubt the transaction will be interpreted as yet another example of the Marlins' frugality. Some will chalk it up as another reason why Giancarlo Stanton would never dream of staying in South Florida long-term.

The Marlins on Saturday announced they renewed Stanton's 2013 contract and those of six others: Logan Morrison, Wade LeBlanc, Mike Dunn, Rob Brantly, Alex Sanabia and Henderson Alvarez.

Stanton according to a union source will earn $537,000, just $47,000 more than the major league minimum.

Players with less than three years of service time have no negotiating leverage. Teams generally have a pay scale for determining the contracts of pre-arbitration eligible players. When the two sides don't agree the team can unilaterally renew the contract.

The Marlins aren't the only organization that takes advantage of the early savings afforded them via the Collective Bargaining Agreement. After watching him finish second in American League Most Valuable Player balloting last season, the Angels on Saturday renewed Mike Trout for $515,000.

Stanton probably isn't taking the renewal as a personal affront. Few players do. The Marlins in 2007 — a year after he won National League Rookie of the Year — renewed Hanley Ramirez for $402,000. That was a mere $22,000 more than the league minimum at the time.

Was Ramirez upset? Yes. Did his rancor preclude him from ultimately accepting a six-year, $70 million contract from the same organization that many felt shafted him as a 0-3 player? No.

Some other examples: the Mariners renewed Felix Hernandez three times and still signed him to two separate extensions spanning 12 years and $243 million; the Nationals renewed Ryan Zimmerman twice and he agreed to two extensions worth $145 million over 12 years; the Phillies renewed Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Cole Hamels a combined five times and signed them to a guaranteed $443.5 million worth of contracts.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/m...,5708102.story

[Bobbob1313]

ehe

[Miamarlin21]

I don't get why everyone is making a big deal about this or Trout. The rules state that they can make the minimum until they are arbitration eligible, so anything over that they should be happy for.

[Bobbob1313]

mick mouse

[Namaste]

I don't get why everyone is making a big deal about this or Trout. The rules state that they can make the minimum until they are arbitration eligible, so anything over that they should be happy for.

Define "everyone".

[Miamarlin21]

Twitterverse.

[Bobbob1313]

I've seen the media types doing it too.

[tjfla]

I don't get why everyone is making a big deal about this or Trout. The rules state that they can make the minimum until they are arbitration eligible, so anything over that they should be happy for.

The Marlins got 2 reasons for doing it-They don't like paying guys if they don't have to(like article says about Hanley) and they are hoping that this might push Stanton into asking for an extension quicker. Prolly makes him wanna resign even less tho,but 7 yr 100 mil is alot better than 500K if money is a factor in stuff

[Mainge]

They don't like paying guys if they don't have to

Who the fuck does?

[HUGG]

ahehahehahe