If Jeffrey Loria knew as much about baseball as he does about deceit and fraud, maybe the Miami Marlins wouldn't have finished in last place two consecutive years and given him the impetus to turn the fail-safe key on his failed ballclub. Around the team, there is a joke about the baseball-operations leadership. Mike Hill is the general manager, but he's really third in charge. Larry Beinfest is president, a title larded with gravitas if not absolute power. That belongs to Loria, the mad king of his opulent castle.

Nowhere else does an owner walk up to players in the clubhouse and inform them of their need to start producing – or, in some cases, of an impending demotion. Loria struts about the players' domain as if he's one of them when so many look at him and wonder what he's doing there, why he wants to be the offspring of George Steinbrenner and Jerry Jones, only, you know, clueless.

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Were Loria not some megalomaniacal charlatan, he already would've complemented the Marlins' latest salary dump with a move that makes far more baseball sense: trading Giancarlo Stanton, the power-hitting leviathan whose value never will be higher than it is right now.

This has a chance to be baseball's version of the Herschel Walker trade. Teams are begging to give up a minivan full of young players for the 23-year-old Stanton, an outfielder with more raw power than anyone in the game. In the immediate aftermath of the trade that saw the Marlins offload Jose Reyes, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, John Buck and Emilio Bonifacio for a bevy of prospects, teams called Marlins executives and asked what it would take to get Stanton.

The response, according to two sources who inquired: He's not available – yet.





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Which is to say Stanton is probably going to price himself out of Miami soon, too, but they plan on milking his talent so long as he's cheap enough. Not only is this tack stubborn and short-sighted, five executives surveyed said holding onto Stanton for even a year could mean the difference between a historic return and the regular sort of bounty big-name players fetch in such deals.

The executives, granted anonymity because they did not want to speak publicly about another team's player, almost all agreed on the sort of package necessary to acquire Stanton: three top-of-the-line, major league or major league-ready players with next to no service time, plus another two or three prospects to fortify a Marlins farm system that would be the best in baseball.

Their rationale was clear: While 2013 is bound to be a lost season, the Marlins' future looks far better with a wide swath of young talent as insurance for the inevitable flameouts of some prospects. Among the talent collected from a Stanton deal, the Toronto trade and other salary dumps, the Marlins at the very least could start over with a group of young players who would ascend through the minor leagues together absent the sourness that permeates those in the major leagues shafted by Loria's if-you-build-it-you-are-dumb business plan.

"They basically said eff you to their fan base," one National League general manager said, "so why not now?"

Why not indeed. While the Marlins could pay Stanton $500,000 this season – unlike other teams that reward high-achieving players before they hit arbitration, the Marlins renew the contracts of their pre-arb players at the minimum salary possible – they know next year his contract will spike to the $7 million range. The executives estimated that over the three years of arbitration, Stanton would receive more than $30 million. Still, to have four full years of control during Stanton's prime years appeals greatly, particularly considering as a position player he offers far less risk than a pitcher.

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