A Threat From The Marlins To Stanton?

So Giancarlo Stanton is out of Miami, being traded just this weekend to the New York Yankees, where he and Aaron Judge could turn out to be the best 1-2 power combo in the league next season. But, apparently, the drama surrounding him with Miami is not over yet, and this latest development out of Miami goes back to when Stanton was going to either go to St. Louis or San Francisco, not New York, where he did land.

Yahoo Sports writer Jeff Passan posted this tweet earlier today:

The backstory of the Giancarlo Stanton trade is bonkers. Miami threatened that if he didn’t accept a trade to St. Louis or San Francisco, he would be a Marlin for life. He called their bluff. And because of it, he’s a New York Yankee.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 11, 2017

This is somehow a new level of intrigue, because it showed that Miami was trying to gain the upper hand over Stanton, who had all the power in the world to block a trade and did that with both St. Louis and San Francisco. The tweet further seems to imply that being a Marlin for life was a punishment, which to many cases, it is, because of their recent few years of being an awful team.

In terms of the Giants deal, the NL MVP last year admitted that he growing up as a Dodgers fan swayed his decision against the Giants, which is understandable but Miami doesn't care whether you go to the Giants or the Dodgers as long as you're not with the Marlins anymore. But yes, I do understand why he doesn't want to go to the Giants in this particular case.

Look, either way, the Yankees made more sense because they did make it to the ALCS last season before going out to Houston. The Giants and the Cardinals both failed to make the playoffs, plus they weren't willing to bring on a huge deal that the Marlins weren't willing to pay most of.

When Stanton signed his 13-year deal, it had a no-trade clause. He exercised it not to go to those two places, and it appears Marlins boss Derek Jeter was fuming when Stanton was refusing to waive it and it seemed like he was the one that made the threats, not the team himself.

Look, Jeter doesn't want anything to do with Stanton anymore. He believes the deal was unwarranted just based on his recent history and his injury-prone problem and that he was better suited than not to go to other team. But the one thing the Marlins should not do is threaten people out the door. I don't care who it is. Stanton called their bluff and wanted to go to a better team. That's all this was, and because of that, Passan is right that he's a Yankee. If you trade a guy, you trade him to a team already contending but also to a team that's not in your league. That's how it should work most of the time with big stars.

I doubt there'll be an investigation from MLB about this, but here's the thing about the Marlins: If this is true, this just made them look small, especially Derek Jeter. He could be ridiculed for a while if he threatened Stanton in any form of way. I don't think he'll be that way and I know he wants to rebuild and rebrand this team in an image that's a winnable image. But no threats. That is a no-go zone, but it's all in the past, and what Stanton should work on now is trying to become a part of a winning culture in the New York Yankees and his resume in Miami could help him with that.