Giancarlo Stanton trade talks are bottlenecking free agency

The Dodgers are the current front-runner.

Everybody has surely been focused on the big news today that Prince Harry finally got engaged (to an American!), which is very important and is taking up everybody’s brain capacity and tearing focus away from other important things.

Oh, that’s just me? Well then never mind, but the point is that if you did happen to be tracking that engagement announcement closely while also caring about baseball, it probably took you an extra second to notice that the free agent market in baseball seems ... slow. Weirdly slow for a post-Thanksgiving Monday, in fact.

Well you’d be right, and there’s one guy that everybody can blame for holding all of those sweet sweet holiday deals up: Giancarlo Stanton.

Stanton hasn’t decided where he’d like to be traded to just yet — which is pretty much his choice since the Marlins admitted that they need to cut salary and are trading him — but the rumors are persisting of him going to the Dodgers, Cardinals, or even the Giants. None of them have transitioned from rumor to reality at this stage.

The latest news from MLB Network’s Jon Morosi is that a trade isn’t about to happen, but the pieces are being shifted around on the chess board in accordance with Stanton’s wishes. That apparently includes a list of teams he would waive his no-trade clause for, including the Dodgers, and the reports indicate that at this point he hasn’t actually rejected a destination.

That’s good news for teams like the Red Sox who were rumored to be higher than other contenders on that “could-be-rejected” list.

Morosi is also reporting that the Dodgers are reportedly Stanton’s first choice and that until he and his camp know what the deal is with L.A. — where he is originally from — they’re not going to go much further with other teams.

Which means that there are currently a lot of teams out there that have no clue where they stand or how hard they’re going to have to work to get Stanton from the Marlins. The Cardinals have submitted a trade offer already, but haven’t heard back.

We also don’t know what other teams are even on the list Stanton gave to the Marlins. For all we know the Brewers could be on there. They almost certainly aren’t, but they could be!

Until more of the details surrounding Stanton’s preferred teams are released, and which teams will take on the chunk of his salary that the Marlins want off their books, there will be many clubs that won’t make other moves on the off chance they will get Stanton. So the entire hitter’s market is being bottlenecked by one man and his no-trade clause, basically.

According to ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick, it’s possible that this will be done by the time Winter Meetings start, and if not teams will get tired of waiting and start making other deals.

Maybe Stanton will go ahead and pick the Dodgers because Meghan Markle is from L.A. and he’s a royal family obsessive during his free time, and the Dodgers will agree to take on his salary because they can and have room in the outfield to slot him in.

No matter where he goes and why, though, he’ll need to get this show on the road soon. Half the free agency market is waiting on him to pick a team already, and once he does, the dam will open and things can really get flowing during this offseason.