Giancarlo Stanton rejects trades to both the Giants and Cardinals

The pool is narrowing when it comes to teams still in the running to land Giancarlo Stanton. Until Friday, Stanton was playing cat and mouse with teams, not explicitly turning down trades by (we can only assume) turning his phone on Do Not Disturb mode and pretending not to see the texts about whether he wanted to play in San Francisco or St. Louis.

But now, he’s speaking up about where he will and won’t play.

First, he let the Cardinals know that he wouldn’t be going to St. Louis. They then tweeted out that news themselves in one of the best self-owns this offseason.

“Hey, look over here! Stanton doesn’t want to be part of our team! It’s totally fine though! It’s not like we had a full agreement in place and now our feelings are hurt! No way! We’re fine!”

The next team to face the no-trade clause guillotine would be the Giants, leaving them only a few hours during which to laugh at the Cardinals and pretend they were still in the running for one of the biggest prizes of the offseason.

The Marlins are “exploring other options” and now the Giants are buying two-for-one boxes of wine and cueing up Bridget Jones’ Diary for some Friday night comfort viewing. They’ll bounce back, but it might take a few trades and a free agent signing to shake off the feeling of rejection. That first date went so well!

With these two teams out of the running, despite the fact that they had agreements in place with the Marlins (or got close to it) that leaves four teams that Stanton would waive his no-trade clause for: The Cubs, Dodgers, Astros, and Yankees.

The Dodgers are the de facto leader simply because everyone knows he wants to play there, but they’re being sensitive about adding millions more to their salary commitments and that might let another team swoop in.

Both the Yankees and the Dodgers are also asking for the Marlins to take a lot off their plates in a potential deal. Which isn’t something on the Marlins’ mood board right now.

Which will actually seal the deal with Stanton? Find out next time on “Giancarlo Stanton is totally messing with these teams and it’s hilarious.”