Giancarlo Stanton, OF

[MiamiHomer]

Sports science just analyzed Stanton's HR in Citi field. Said studies have shown that a ball can lose 3 feet of distance for every MPH of wind going against it. Wind that night was coming in directly from center field at 16 MPH so going by what they said, if there was no wind resistance that night it could have possibly gone 513 feet. Also hit it 1.5 degrees off a direct line of 2nd base so it almost was exactly dead center.went it was going over 2nd base.

[Namaste]

He's going to make the HR derby watchable.

I'll be glued to the TV because of him


/I'mGayForHimDidYouHear?

[Swifty]

Longoria him, please.

[Party]

Yes please.

[Erick]

I think we're going to be doing this "Ugh, Stanton looks terrible, he needs a day off, he needs to get moved down... Oh my, Stanton just hit 4 home runs in 5 days and is going crazy" thing every like 9 days for the rest of the season. He seems to be putting together terrible 7 game stretches and then amazing like 4-5 game stretches. He's super streaky right now.

That's not surprising at all.

It's the reason why I never say anything when he struggles; I expected struggles.

Not only is he 21 but he strikes out a ton, so he's going to have his fair share of slumps.

However, the hot streaks more than makeup for the occasional struggles.

And he's back to his super awesome self defensively, as well, after his slow start because of the hamstring injury.

[Bobbob1313]

I personally would be very surprised if Stanton does not OPS over 1.100 in a season during his career.

Jesus christ, there are people who have really, really, really, unbelievably unrealistic expectations for Mike Stanton.

Because I can't sleep, here's what I responded with (Though I'm sure nobody gives a shit.)

You know how many individual seasons in major league history have seen an OPS greater than 1.090 with more than 150 Ks? 2.

You know how many individual seasons in major league history have seen an OPS greater than 1.090 with more than 125 Ks? 5.

Do you know how many individual seasons there are in major league history with at least 450 PAs? 13,193.

Players who strike out as much as Mike Stanton do not put up 1.100 OPS. The only ones who did were on steroids or walked well over 100 times per season.

There have been 94 seasons in major league history in which a player has had at least 450 PAs and a 1.090 OPS. You are saying you will be surprised if Mike Stanton doesn't put up at least one full season in his career which ranks amongst the top .07% of all individual seasons ever. That's absolutely ridiculous.

Apparently I have a reputation as a Stanton detractor over there now because along with this, I said I don't think he will lead the NL in HRs this year and that he'll never have as good a season as Gary Sheffield's 1996.

[Swifty]

Sheff's 96, Hanley's 2009 and Brown's 96 are the three best individual seasonsin team history. I would think that it's unrealistic to expect anyone to surpass those seasons. Possible, sure; expected, no.

[emkayseven]

stop double dipping bobloblaw

[Party]

I like how Idiotown completely ignores 1 in ~8,000.

[Bobbob1313]

I've been obsessed with Stanton's long term potential recently. I'm convinced Stanton's going to have a good career. I just don't know what it's going to be. I have no idea. Players like him don't come around very much.

Just for reference, the list of players who struck out 25% of the time over 6000 PAs and put up at least an .850 OPS is this. Players that strike out as much as Stanton just don't come up very often and sustain great careers:

Darryl Strawberry
Jim Edmonds
Mo Vaughn (lol 90s)
Sammy Sosa
Jose Canseco
Jim Thome
Adam Dunn
Reggie Jackson (.846 OPS, we'll count it)

There's some really good players on there, but they almost exclusively played in the ridiculously inflated offensive era that was the 1990's. Strawberry, Jackson, Dunn, and (Thome to an extent) are the only exceptions.

Jim Thome is the absolute pipe dream, but I can't see Stanton developing a 17% BB rate, considering Thome came into the majors basically walking 15% of the time.

I guess looking at them, Jackson is the most likely outcome, with the 12% BB, 26% K. .262/.356/.490 career line.

There always is, of course, the possibility that he's totally unique in baseball history, but you can't expect someone to be unique.

___________________

Mike Stanton is a pretty unique player, though.

Using Baseball-Reference's play index, I did a search for all players between the ages of 20-22 who had seasons in which they had at least 396 PAs, an ISO of .240, and at least 120 Ks, which is basically what Stanton did last year, and there were only 6 seasons in the history of baseball. The players who did them were Juan Gonzalez, Alex Rodriguez, Andruw Jones, Evan Longoria, Darryl Strawberry, and Stanton.

5 MVPs, 11 top 5 MVP finishes among them. That's pretty damn good company.

[emkayseven]

I'm pretty okay if he's Reggie

[Bobbob1313]

I feel like if you just say "Mike Stanton's going to have an .846 OPS for his career," it sounds dissapointing.

[emkayseven]

I feel like to "expect" anything more is setting up for a huge disappointment. Few players as it is can sustain a higher OPS for their careers, let alone with the amount of K's Stanton has. Especially considering the decline we're seeing in offense, a guy who can put up those numbers for 20 years is something special.

Also, Reggie had a really sharp decline his last few years in the majors. In his first ~9000 plate appearances he had an .875 OPS and 149 OPS+ (that's even including a .750 OPS in his age 35 season). In his last 2500 he had a .738 OPS and a 102 OPS+. That's really where the low numbers come from. Once he hit 37, he tanked pretty hard but was still hitting home runs.

[Miamarlin21]

Expect the unexpected?

[Chewford]

Expect the unexpected?

Stanton's career is going to be more on par with the Batman.