All of that being said, I don't know that this deal makes sense for anybody. For the Marlins, if they aren't going to try to get him to waive that no-trade clause (and from a PR perspective, I'm not sure they can afford to trade him now anyway), it's a crippling expenditure. They have no income. It's really ugly. $25 million is probably more than 1/3 of their available salary assuming no profit. Granted, the early years are actually very low. He's giving up money the next 2 years compared to what he would have gotten in arbitration. But you still can't sign anybody to deals longer than 3 years for meaningful money, because in the 4th year the Stanton contract gets big, and at that point their young guys - Yelich, Ozuna, Eovaldi, Alvarez, Cosart, Fernandez - are all in arbitration, and that's basically the salary right there. So as much as he tried to allow them to build a contract that would let them build around him, the reality is that unless they have some incredibly optimistic revenue forecasting, they're still handcuffed by the years in terms of signing free agents. Right now they're going hard after Adam LaRoche. He's a nice piece, and he'd give Stanton better protection than he had this year. But that team isn't just an Adam LaRoche or 2 away from being a WS contender, even with all those young arms.
From Stanton's perspective, at his age, $25 million a year isn't enough. Especially since he only gets like 1/3 of it before the opt-out. With a more balanced deal, it's not terrible - he'd get to balance security with the opportunity to cash in big after his age 30 season. But now, if he opts out, he's massively underpaid through his 20s relative to his production leading into this contract. Frankly, I don't think he signs this deal without the pitch that shortened his season. I think the sudden reality of the possibility of a career-ending injury made 1/3 of a billion dollars guaranteed sound too good to pass up. But the reality is that his expected career salary is almost certainly lower now than it would have been a week ago because of this contract.