Marlins’ president of baseball operations Michael Hill told reporters Sunday that he has no intention of dealing Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, Justin Bour, J.T. Realmuto, Marcell Ozuna or Dan Straily at the trade deadline this July. That’s a decision he feels would be better left in the hands of the Marlins’ new ownership, though the hand-off may still be a ways away.
That doesn’t mean that teams aren’t interested in the club’s core players, however. From Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald:
It’s not stopping calls from coming in,” Hill said of the interest. “It’s been fairly consistent, with people checking in to see where we’re at to see if we may be open to expanding the players we’re talking about. But we haven’t put any of those guys in play.
ESPN’s Buster Olney adds that there’s a catch-22 when it comes to moving superstars like Stanton. He represents the face of the franchise and one of the team’s most significant assets, but the remainder of his 13-year, $325 million contract also makes up a sizable portion of the Marlins’ debt.
While the club may not be ready to deal some of their marquee players just yet, they don’t intend to sit pat at the deadline, either. They’re still looking to shed some payroll in the bullpen after dealing right-handed reliever David Phelps to the Mariners and appear to be listening to multiple offers on fellow righty A.J. Ramos. Ramos, 30, has seen mixed results over his first 37 1/3 innings of 2017 with a 3.86 ERA, 4.8 BB/9 and 11.1 SO/9, though Hill appears optimistic that the Marlins can extract considerable value from a trade.
