Every day that goes by with Giancarlo Stanton in a Miami Marlins uniform is a wasted opportunity for a franchise begging to be run properly. And after years of the most feckless ownership group in baseball alienating an entire metropolitan area with lies, mismanagement and a seeming contempt for decency, its going-away present to new ownership should be to either trade Stanton now or lay the groundwork for a deal come the offseason.

For the next 16 days, the Marlins can present contending teams with an alluring possibility: Trade for the hottest hitter alive, a 6-foot-6, 250-pound machine whose 10 home runs in his last 11 games give him a Major League Baseball-leading 43 this season. Stanton cleared waivers on Sunday, multiple sources told Yahoo Sports, allowing the Marlins to deal him to any team through the end of August.

The market for Stanton may not be as limited as believed, either, according to sources, despite the 10 years and $295 million remaining on his contract. At least four teams have inquired about the possibility of trading for him, sources said, and talks on a potential Stanton deal with one team before the July 31 non-waiver trading deadline had progressed to the point where the sides were exchanging names of players who could come back to Miami in return.

The deal dissolved amid questions of whether the Marlins could trade Stanton with the team’s ownership situation unresolved. With Saturday’s announcement that owner Jeffrey Loria would sell the Marlins to a group led by money man Bruce Sherman and public face Derek Jeter, the opportunity for the Marlins to truly push the reset button and capitalize on the best season of the 27-year-old Stanton’s career is ripe.

It’s time for the Miami Marlins to move Giancarlo Stanton. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) More

“Anyone who knows anything knows you sell high on him,” said one source familiar with the Stanton talks. “You can relieve yourself of that burden.”

The burden isn’t just monetary, though that’s the obvious liability. In a market like Miami, where revenue trickles and the entire identity of the franchise needs a reboot, a near-$30 million-a-year player is simply incompatible. With Stanton next season, the Marlins’ payroll would hover near $125 million – and that’s if they don’t make a single move this offseason to improve a team that’s not even .500.

An even greater imperative is to bring stability to a franchise that has seen enough fire sales to brand Loria a baseball arsonist. Dealing Stanton would fall under a different category: a practical, tactical strike whose motivation goes beyond money. The notion that Marlins fans have some sort of affinity for Stanton presupposes there are actually Marlins fans to begin with. Some exist, of course, and they’re to be pitied for remaining loyal to a team owned by habitual miscreants. For the rest of those in South Florida that ignored the Marlins – in addition to a mirage of a season-ticket base, the team has the fourth-worst local TV ratings in MLB – this is the perfect opportunity to start anew.

Holding on to any piece of what the Marlins were – and that includes someone the caliber of Stanton, with his epic home runs and .283/.374/.640 line – is the play for a cloying romantic, not a chief executive with intentions of actually building the franchise in a proper fashion. This would not be business as usual. It would be the very opposite: business with a more prosperous future in mind.

Moreover, it would be mutually beneficial. Stanton’s desire to play for a contender is obvious, and the likelihood of his no-trade clause getting in the way of that lands somewhere between 0 percent and 0 percent. The Marlins, meanwhile, not only would send Stanton to the sort of team he desires, they would inure themselves from going into next season with the future of Stanton and his level of happiness with the franchise’s direction a prevailing story.

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