Giancarlo Stanton, OF

[nny]

Eddie Mathews is so far his best 20 year old rookie comparable

Styled in the vain of OPS+, so 100 = league average

Mathews:
K%: 177
BB%: 107
ISO: 175
HR/PA: 235
BABIP: 98

Stanton:
K%: 189
BB%: 103
ISO: 159
HR/PA: 206
BABIP: 99

After putting up a .767 OPS as a 20 year old, Mathews would absolutely EXPLODE at 21, as his power and walks skyrocketed. Kind of sounds like Mikey's Jupiter and Jacksonville once he got adjusted huh?

Was interested how this would look now

Stanton:
K%: 171
BB%: 120
ISO: 188
HR/PA: 231
BABIP: 114

Another comp, Mickey Mantle:
K%: 162
BB%: 129
ISO: 187
HR/PA: 205
BABIP: 131

Justin Upton is only other 20 year old in history of game to combine high K, BB, and power, but his power is lower and BB% is higher:

K%: 166
BB%: 149
ISO: 140
HR/PA: 138
BABIP: 111

I'd be interested in looking at rookies too, but B-R only has "first year" and that doesn't mean rookie year (i.e. for Ryan Howard, the 42 PA he got in 2004 is his "first year", even though he was rookie of year in 2005)

[Sashimi]

In quite the mini-funk now again: 1 for his last 25 and 9 for his last 50.

[Swifty]

Coinciding with his temporary stay in the 5 hole. Homerless since then.

Could use a day off. Or two.

[emkayseven]

Open Mike: The most impressive thing about Marlins phenom Mike Stanton isn't his 18 homers or .502 slugging percentage at age 20. It's his drive to be the best player alive.

"This guy wants to get better every day, and he doesn't want to waste any day," Marlins manager Edwin Rodriguez told Rumblings. "I can picture him in the morning, when he wakes up, he says, 'Today, I want to be a better player than I was yesterday.'"

Rodriguez then told a story about how Stanton decided earlier this year that he needed to do a better job of recognizing the sliders in the dirt he was waving at.

"So he came up with a drill," the manager said. "He set up the pitching machine to throw sliders at 90 miles an hour, and he set it up to throw all balls. But every eight or 10 pitches, the machine (screws up and) throws a strike, and that's the one he wants to recognize.

"So basically, this guy would spend 10-15 minutes in the cage, taking 60-70-80 pitches -- so he could swing at four. And it was all his idea. Everyone was like, 'What's he doing?' But he came up with that. I never saw that before."

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/column...mblings1000909

That's just a fucking awesome drill

[MiamiHomer]

How can you not like this guy. <3 Mike

[CrimsonCane]

As part of rookie hazing, this will be Stanton's outfit on the ride home from Milwaukee.

Source: Stanton's Twitter (http://twitter.com/mikestanton27)

[Miamarlin21]

Awh he'll be so cute.


Nohomo

[THE_REAL_MIBS]

I made a thread for this to put all the pictures.

[Swifty]

Mike Stanton 2011: NASA's Newest Launch Pad

Slugging Stanton bulks up even more
Homer hitter adds eight pounds before taking over at cleanup
By Joe Frisaro / MLB.com | 02/15/11 9:40 AM EST

MIAMI -- One of the biggest offensive threats on the Marlins has gotten even bigger.

Mike Stanton has packed on eight more pounds since the end of last season, and the slugger now heads into Spring Training a sculpted 250 pounds.

All muscle, right?

"Fat," Stanton joked to reporters during the Marlins' "Caravan for the Troops" week.

Make no mistake, Stanton is physically fit and is ready to build on his impressive rookie year in 2010.

One of the most towering and physically impressive young players in the game, Stanton is a major reason why the Marlins have high expectations in 2011.

Standing 6-foot-5 1/2, the sky is the limit for Stanton, who paced all big league rookies last year with 22 home runs.

As he keeps piling up numbers, invariably, he will receive more recognition and become even more of a household name. He's well aware that expectations always will be higher.

"For me, I kind of always disappoint myself, because you always expect more than you even dreamed of," Stanton said. "So the plateau is unreachable and you're always in grasp of it.

"It still blows my mind that I'm even here. You dream about this all your life, and when you're living it, it's surreal sometimes. It's exciting."

Around South Florida, more people are starting to wear Stanton No. 27 shirts and jerseys.

"I have seen those," Stanton said. "That's real cool."

As a rookie, Stanton batted .259 with 22 homers, 21 doubles and 59 RBIs in 359 at-bats. Along with the power came strikeouts, as he fanned 123 times.

But the fact that Stanton hit 22 home runs in 100 Major League games makes it natural to wonder what he is capable of in a full season.

"It will be interesting, yeah," the right fielder said. "I'm more curious to see how good we're going to be [as a team], actually. As long as I do what I'm supposed to, and everyone fits their slot, it's going to be really interesting."

Stanton, who turned 21 on Nov. 8, is far from a finished product. He's still figuring out the big leagues, and based on his track record in the Minor Leagues, it is a matter of time before he posts big numbers. He hit .313 with a .442 on-base percentage at Double-A Jacksonville last year before being called up. One constant that has followed him is the home runs. In 324 Minor League games, he hit 89 dingers.

A former three-sport standout in high school, Stanton was selected in the second round of the 2007 First-Year Player Draft. He has accomplished so much so fast, including belting at least 20 homers at the Minor League and big league levels in the same year.

Prior to being called up from Double-A, Stanton connected on 21 homers in 53 games at Jacksonville. So he hit 43 homers in 153 professional games in 2010.

The opportunity for more eye-opening power numbers is in front of him because he is expected to bat cleanup this season. The top of Florida's lineup is projected to be Chris Coghlan, Omar Infante, Hanley Ramirez and then Stanton.

As Stanton was breaking in as a rookie, the Marlins took the pressure off him by hitting him lower in the order. Most of the slugger's success came either from the sixth or seventh slots.

Batting sixth, he had a .330 average with 11 homers and 23 RBIs, compared to a .257 average with eight homers and 25 RBIs while hitting seventh.

The switch to fourth puts him where he profiles best in the big leagues.

"You either can handle it or you can't," Marlins president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest said. "Either you're Miguel Cabrera and you can handle it, or you are Mike Stanton and you can handle it. His ability is off the charts, and he's going to be fine. There are going to be some days when he's going to look like a 21-year-old without a lot of big league experience. But he is a special talent."

Because Florida has several young players who have yet to reach their prime, the team is considered a long shot to reach the postseason.

Stanton, though, isn't buying that. He said he thinks the Marlins are capable of being a "Cinderella" story.

"When you look at the stats, we lost like 20 something games from the seventh inning on," Stanton said of the 2010 season. "It wasn't our lineup. Our lineup got longer overall, and our bullpen got tougher. Other teams have gotten stronger as well. But people overlook us. I'm not just saying that. That's a fact. We're just going to play through it and see what happens."

Joe Frisaro is a reporter for MLB.com. He writes a blog, called The Fish Pond. Follow him on Twitter @JoeFrisaro. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?...s_mlb&c_id=mlb

[Miamarlin21]

8 more pounds of sexiness.

[Party]

Just keep him away from the platanitos.

[MiamiHomer]

MikeStanton27 Mike Stanton
Hole in 1 on a par 3 I win a brand new Mercedes. Never golfed but I'm taking this challenge !

I want to see how far he could hit a golf ball.

[Party]

Stanton seeks to cut down K's as sophomore

Young Marlins slugger puts focus on making contact this spring

By Joe Frisaro / MLB.com

JUPITER, Fla. -- With the immense power Mike Stanton possesses, it's safe to project big numbers from the 21-year-old phenom.

One statistic the Marlins slugger hopes to reduce, however, is strikeouts.

Putting the ball in play is one of Stanton's objectives this season, and he is placing an emphasis on it in Spring Training.

"My biggest problem anyways is striking out," Stanton said. "The only way to get better at that is in games. No machine, no anything can simulate a live MLB game."

As a rookie, Stanton had 359 big league at-bats, and he struck out 123 times.

High strikeout totals are often a byproduct of great power. Dan Uggla paced the Marlins in homers with 33 last year, and he went down on strikes 149 times.

Manager Edwin Rodriguez says that strikeouts are something the team and Stanton will have to live with.

"Definitely, I think we will see some improvement," Rodriguez said. "But I don't think it's going to be a huge improvement. He's the kind of hitter that that's going to happen. But we have seen with Mike Stanton, through his Minor League career, that he shows some improvement the second time around.

"When he gets more comfortable, he will improve that strikeout ratio. But we're not expecting a huge improvement. We have to live with it."

When Stanton makes contact, he certainly is dangerous. He paced all big league rookies in home runs last year with 22, and counting his 21 at Double-A Jacksonville, he belted 43 homers in professional baseball in 2010.

As part of his preparation, Stanton continues his drill of seeing sliders from a pitching machine in the batting cages.

Expectations are high for Stanton, who is one of the game's most intriguing young players. He played last year at age 20, and Marlins players, fans and the front office are curious to see what he can do over 162 games.

Stanton will have the benefit this Spring Training of being a regular. He should get 60-70 at-bats before Opening Day. A year ago, he was limited to 28 at-bats in eight games, and he still connected on three homers and drove in eight runs.

"It's definitely going to give me a taste of how the season is going to go," Stanton said of having more at-bats in Spring Training. "It should help me be more prepared."

Florida's first exhibition game is on Sunday against the University of Miami at Roger Dean Stadium.

Stanton also is adjusting to batting cleanup after he hit lower in the lineup as a rookie.

"I'm working on just being mentally prepared," the slugger said. "It's not that I don't have stuff to work on specifically. I'm kind of working on it little by little. It's not one thing I work on all the time, because then I feel like everything else falls out."

http://florida.marlins.mlb.com/news/...k_fla&c_id=fla

[Jay]

If Stanton has a good april- may can we please just give him a contract in july for a long time

[Party]

How do you structure pay for a contract worth infinity years?