Giancarlo Stanton, Marlins agree to record $325 million deal

Stanton in recent days was rumored to be discussing a deal with the Marlins anywhere from 10 to 13 seasons worth $300 to 325 million. The outfielder earned $6.5 million in 2014 and was eligible for salary arbitration in 2015 and 2016.

The contract includes a full no-trade clause and and opt-out clause after 2020, the sixth year of the deal, and is heavily backloaded. Stanton will earn $107 million during the first six years of the deal, and $218 million for the final seven. Stanton stated that the opt-out was for his “protection” so he can verify that the organization is continuing to “move forward” and focus on winning. Shortly after, Stanton said, “You guys can think whatever you want. But it was not the money fueling this.” Considering $218 million of the deal comes after the opt-out, it’s easier to believe that’s the truth.

The $325 million Stanton will receive is a record, as is the 13-year player contract. Albert Pujols signed a longer deal with the Angels before 2012, but only 10 years of it came as a player -- the rest is as basically a representative of the Angels where they can use his name and likeness to their benefit. Only six years of the deal are guaranteed, but that was Stanton’s choice: the deal is heavily backloaded to after Stanton’s opt-out, which comes after 2020, so he still has the chance to escape Miami if the Marlins don’t prove as competitive and spend-happy as he’s been promised.

Stanton will earn $6.5 million in 2015, $9 million in 2016, and $14.5 million in 2017. For context, Stanton made $6.5 million in 2014, his first year of arbitration, and was in line for a hefty raise for this upcoming season had he not signed an extension. Jon Heyman of CBS Sports has the annual breakdown:

2015: $6.5 million

2016: $9 million

2017: $14.5 million

2018: $25 million

2019: $26 million

2020: $26 million

2021: $29 million

2022: $29 million

2023: $32 million

2024: $32 million

2025: $32 million

2026: $29 million

2027: $25 million

2028: $25 million option ($10 million buyout)

It’s going to take more than the Giancarlo Stanton extension to rebuild the bridges the Marlins have burned over the last 17 seasons. It’s a record-setting deal, and shows a commitment towards a cornerstone player that no other organization has ever approached before, but it’s still just a hint that the Marlins are changing their ways: We’ve seen hints before. It will take future commitments and some new friends for Stanton to truly convince many that the Marlins are going to be different this time, but Miami isn’t as far off from doing it as they might seem.

The whole third of a billion dollars and security for life thing likely helped, but Stanton has been on the record as saying he wouldn’t stay with the Marlins if they didn’t show a commitment to winning. Trading Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle away a year after signing them to lucrative long-term deals had obvious issues that helped create Stanton’s mindset in the first place, but the players they got back are now part of Miami’s core along with him. General manager Dan Jennings has added additional pieces where he could -- some interesting, some not -- in the meantime, and the team promoted Jose Fernandez to the majors for 2013 at an age when most would have stuck him in the minors. While he missed much of last season due to Tommy John surgery, Fernandez is one of the game’s top young arms, and a rotation anchor that most teams would likely commit felonies for if they thought it would help them acquire him.

For all of the jokes about Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria being an amorphous mass of pulsing greed and blackened id -- and I have a lot of them! -- I’ll bet even he wants to go back in time and give his predecessor, Wayne Huizenga, a firm kick in the buttocks. The Marlins have been a weird, inexplicable franchise since their inception, but nothing was more cynical than the post-1997 selloff. Nothing made less sense. The Marlins spent to win before ‘97, and they actually did it. They won the World Series in front of 67,000 screaming fans. Then they embarked upon the most oafish, artless rebuilding plan in recent baseball history for no good reason. They’ve been paying for it ever since. They paid about $320 million for it this fall.

The 1997 season was the kind that should have made Miami a baseball town, or something close to it. Take the Arizona Diamondbacks, their expansion cousins. The Diamondbacks last season were a collapsed ball of talent that was so dense, no talent could escape. They almost lost 100 games. Yet they still drew more than two million fans, just like they have in every season after their World Series win. The Marlins could have been relevant for years if they kept the good vibes going. Instead, Huizenga was ... I think the word is spiteful. That fire sale was acidic and nasty, as if he expected three million fans after his previous spending spree, and the liquidation thrown back in the faces of the cheapskates who didn’t show.

The deal would include a no-trade clause and an opt-out for Stanton after an as-of-yet-unknown number of years and was confirmed by Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, who initially reported talks of a deal for at least 10 years and $300 million on Thursday.

Stanton, who turned 25 on Nov. 8, had his best season in 2014, hitting .288/.395/.555 with 37 home runs, 105 RBI and 94 walks. Stanton has 154 home runs in his first five years in the major leagues, including averaging 33 home runs over his last four full seasons. But if there is any concern over committing such a long deal to Stanton, it is that he has averaged just 134 games per year from 2011-2014, missing an average of 28 games per season.