Giancarlo Cruz Michael Stanton is the US professional baseball player who has been playing since 2010 for the Miami Marlins in the Major League Baseball (MLB). He is a charismatic leader and one of the most dangerous attackers. This famous player has led his team to outstanding success. Of course, his popularity has led to the emergence of some steroid speculation. In this article, we’ll try to figure out whether the young star took steroids or not. But first we will tell you some important facts from the athlete’s biography.

Giancarlo Stanton’s background

The future baseball star was born November 8, 1989 in the United States of America. It has Irish, African-American and Puerto Rican roots.

You know that in baseball players need strong nerves, capable of withstanding a strong onslaught and fierce struggle. But Giancarlo has long proved that he is one of the most reliable players in the world. Thanks to powerful strikes with an average range of 450 feet (more than 135 meters), he at his young age already participated three times in the matches of MLB All-Stars.

How did the career of the young player begin? Stanton was selected in 2007 in the 2nd draft round by the Florida Marlins and initially appeared in the team’s farm clubs, including the Jacksonville Suns, representing the Double-A level. In Major League Baseball he made his debut on June 8, 2010 in a match against Philadelphia Phillies, in which he scored three strokes and two RBI.

In the 2012 season, the sportsman was selected for the first time for the All-Star Game, but he did not play in this game because of a right knee injury (he was replaced by Bryce Harper from Washington Nationals), and also had the best MLB Slugging percentage (0.608), which is also called Slugging average. In March 2013, he appeared with the United States team at the World Baseball Classic tournament. In the spring of 2014, in the inter-league match the sportsman won the winning grand slam.

In 2014, he received the award of Hank Aaron as the best striker of the League, and a few months later he signed the most profitable contract in the history of the MLB.

On September 12, 2014, Stanton received numerous fractures of the skull bones after the ball hit his face. If the ball hit a little higher, and he could lose his eyes. It is because of this injury that many analysts predicted a minimum of interest in the Stanton, as after such attacks most outfielders and batters do not recover and never again play at the usual level.

The famous contract of Giancarlo Stanton

In 2014, baseball player Giancarlo Stanton signed the biggest contract in the history of sports. Under the terms of the contract, Giancarlo Stanton should earn $325 million in the period from 2014 to 2017.

The deal became the largest in the history of sports. At the same time, the 25-year-old American did not immediately become the highest paid athlete of the planet. In the first two years, his salary was not high: in the 1st season, Stanton earned only $6.5 million, then his salary grew to $9 million, and for the third season he received $ 14.5 million. Over the past three years, Giancarlo earned about 77 million dollars in total. For the last seven seasons of the contract, he was to receive 218 million dollars.

“I understand that a lot is expected of me, and I have to live up to my expectations,” Stanton told the official Marlins website. “It’s not like a lottery. People think about it in this way: you win the lottery, then you leave work, you live where you want, considering the matter done. For me, this is the beginning of a new job. This is a huge responsibility, which I wanted to take. I have been going to this moment since the draft in 2007, and I have what to do, and there is a room for improvement”, Stanton added.

The previous record for the total value of the contract belonged to another baseball player – Venezuelan Miguel Cabrera – who signed a ten-year agreement with Detroit Tigers for $ 292 million in March.

Why did Giancarlo receive such a contract? Experts believe that the reason for this was a combination of factors:

• After the 2014 season, Giancarlo became this most promising batter after Michael Trout.
• Stanton spent the mega-season-2014: 37 HR, 395 OBP, 159 wRC +, 6.1 WAR. If all these figures do not say anything for you, then it’s something close to the level of Kobe Bryant, Cristiano Ronaldo, Calvin Johnson, and other outstanding sports stars in the first seasons in their leagues.
• In 2014, Stanton turned 25 years old. That is, Miami purchased him while he was in the best years of his career.
• Stanton was to become a free agent after the season-2016. And at the age of 27, he was to receive a mega-contract.
• He received his mega-contract from the team from a small market where he grew up. Teams from a small market in baseball often overpay for well-known players.

However, in 2017 Miami was in bad financial condition. In October 2017, Miami changed the owners, who headed for a hard rebuild. Numerous veterans and advisers were dismissed from the team, soon the new owners began to sell out the sale of all players. Given the new strategy, Stanton was the main candidate for withdrawal. The administration of Miami managed to make deals with St. Louis and San Francisco for a month, but Stanton refused to move to both these teams using the right of veto. After this, Giancarlo narrowed the circle of teams he was ready to move to the four ones. These were Chicago Cubs, Dodgers, NY Yankees and Houston Astros. As a result, Giancarlo moved to Yankees who committed to pay him under the terms of his famous contract.

Recognition of Giancarlo

In the autumn of 2017, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) presented the main award on the results of last season. It was the prize to the most valuable player of the American and National leagues. Jose Altuve, the second baseman of Houston, was recognized as the best player, while Giancarlo Stanton, the outfielder of Miami (at that moment) became the best in the NL outfielder Miami.

After completing the first full season in six years (we mean without injuries), Stanton was ahead of all Major League Baseball with a serious breakdown in the number of home runs with 59 long-range HRs. And despite the fact that his team was far from reaching the playoffs, so impressive performance of Giancarlo on the field caused increased interest of media.

The battle for the MVP title in NL turned out to be extremely tense. At the finish, Stanton overtook the representative of Cincinnati Joey Votto (first baseman), and the distance between the first and second place was only 2 credits. Stanton and Votto both collected the first 10 places, but the extra second, third and sixth places in the vote provided the minimal advantage of the former Miami Marlins star. The third prize was given to Paul Goldschmidt from Arizona. The full distribution of votes in the National League can be found on the official MLB website.

Giancarlo Stanton and steroids

You know that steroids in baseball are a big problem. In the 2000s, many players confessed to using illegal steroids. What about Giancarlo Stanton who is the next generation star? Generally, his name is clean. But some believe that his home run records were caused by the use of anabolic drugs (such as Winstrol or testosterone propionate). These speculations are groundless.