Winners and losers from the Giancarlo Stanton fallout

2. Chicago Cubs

Giancarlo Stanton was first linked to the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals. His stated preference was to go to the Los Angeles Dodgers. None of those trades materialized beyond the rumor stage, and Stanton is completely out of the National League.

Had Stanton gone to the Dodgers, the Cubs would have fallen even further behind a team that won 104 games last year and made quick work of them in the NLCS. The Dodgers did that with only one real power threat, Cody Bellinger, in their lineup.

The Cubs dynasty that we were already predicting after they won the 2016 World Series took a step back last season. While it would have been nice to trade for Stanton after he put them on his list of finalists, the Cubs didn’t really have a place for him without trading Theo Epstein’s favorite son, Kyle Schwarber.

Stanton isn’t going to one of their chief rivals, the Cubs can still focus their spending on starting pitching and the bullpen this year, they hold onto Schwarber as a potential trade chip for now and still have room for Bryce Harper next winter. The Cubs were wise to sit out the Stanton sweepstakes, and now they won’t have to deal with him until the World Series.