Giancarlo Stanton, OF

[dim]

His Isolated power right now is .315, which, if he qualified, would make him the leader in the majors, "just" ahead of Josh Hamilton, who's Iso. power is .292

[emkayseven]

Miami Marlins right fielder Giancarlo Stanton has been named the National League Player of the Week for the period ending August 26th. The announcement was made earlier today on MLB Network.

In seven games last week, Stanton was tied for first in the Majors with five home runs while his .857 slugging percentage and 24 total bases both ranked first in the N.L. He collected eight RBI and seven runs scored during the week, tying for second and third in the N.L., respectively, while posting a .287 (8-for-28) batting average. The 22-year-old’s five home runs gave him 85 for his career, surpassing Andruw Jones (84) and Mickey Mantle (84) for the ninth-most all-time by a player under the age of 23. Stanton, who will turn 23 in November, is just one home run behind Jimmie Foxx (86) for eighth on the list and trails Johnny Bench and Ken Griffey, Jr. (both 87) by two. The All-Star slugger began the week with a 2-for-5, four-RBI effort, notching his sixth career multi-homer game and second in as many weeks (also on August 8th at the Mets) as the Marlins defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks, 12-3, at Chase Field. The following night, Stanton led Miami to its second straight victory at Arizona, going 3-for-6 and driving in the game-winning run with a single in the top of the 10th to give the Fish a 6-5 win. The California native continued his run-producing ways over the weekend in a three-game set against the Los Angeles Dodgers, launching solo shots in all three outings at Dodger Stadium, giving him 29 on the season. Since returning from the disabled list on August 7th, Stanton leads the N.L. with 10 home runs and a .789 slugging percentage. In addition, his 19 RBI during that span is tied for second in the league. This is his second career weekly award, having won previously for the week of August 9-15, 2010.

Other noteworthy performances last week included Stanton’s Marlins teammate Donovan Solano (.480, 12 H, 5 R, .567 OBP); Allen Craig (.440, 11 H, 2 HR, 9 RBI, 8 R, .500 OBP), Matt Holliday (.444, 12 H, 4 2B, 8 RBI) and Adam Wainwright (2-0, 1.23 ERA, CG, SHO, 14 SO, 14.2 IP) of the St. Louis Cardinals; Andre Ethier (.440, 11 H, 2 HR, 6 RBI, .760 SLG) of the Dodgers; Atlanta’s Jason Heyward (.393, 11 H, 4 HR, 8 RBI, .821 SLG); San Francisco’s Angel Pagan (.414, 12 H, 4 2B, 10 R, 2 SB); R.A. Dickey (1-0, 1.29 ERA, 8 SO, 14.O IP) of the New York Mets; and San Diego’s Edinson Volquez (2-0, 1.98 ERA, 17 SO, 13.2 IP).

In recognition of his National League Player of the Week Award, Giancarlo Stanton will be awarded a watch courtesy of Game Time, the leader in licensed sports watches, available at MLB.com.

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

[MiamiHomer]

Giancarlo Stanton‘s 30th homer yesterday marks the second straight year he’s hit 30. And it makes him the fifth player to ever have consecutive 30-home run seasons before they turned 23. The other four: Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols, Eddie Mathews and Jimmie Foxx.

From Elias

[emkayseven]

two Marlins on that list is pretty cool. I wish we still had Migs

[emkayseven]

One of the only bright spots left in the 2012 season for the Miami Marlins is seeing just how good Giancarlo Stanton can be in terms of home runs in a season in which he missed a month of playing time with injury. From before and after the injury, Stanton has been nothing but stellar in knocking out home runs at a pace matched by few players before him, but as we have seen lately, that has not come without its share of problems. As of late, Stanton has also racked up the strikeouts lately, and that has his strikeout rate climbing up to 29.0 percent prior to yesterday afternoon's game.

Now, we all know that strikeouts are not the be all, end all for determining the skill of a player. Long gone are the days when a player's high strikeout rates were a death knell to his career no matter what else he did. Ever since strikeouts went on a meteoric rise in 1990's and 2000's, it has become fairly commonplace to see really high strikeout rates on otherwise good hitters. Indeed, hitters like Rob Deer paved the way for guys like Adam Dunn, Sammy Sosa, and Jim Thome to be acceptable hitters in the eyes of baseball. Provided you could do other things to make up for your strikeouts, like walk often and hit a lot of home runs, your strikeouts were less relevant.

But Stanton has not yet become a disciplined, selective hitter with contact issues that others who have succeeded before him became. Right now, Stanton is still just swinging and missing at a lot of pitches, and it turns out that can limit your success. Yet somehow, he is still succeeding in an unprecedented fashion, with a wOBA of .398 and a .283/.351/.597 slash line despite all of his hindrances.

************
Comparable Seasons

Stanton's season of strikeouts is in rare company. From 1992 to 2011, there are only 42 player-seasons among players who qualified for the batting title that boasted a strikeout rate greater than 27 percent. Sixteen of those seasons had a strikeout rate higher than Stanton's 29.0 percent mark thus far this year. When you put all of those seasons together, however, the rates for these seasons add up to a strikeout rate of 29.7 percent (when you take away intentional walks from the PA count) and an unintentional walk rate of 11.1 percent. Right off the bat, you see a little of what makes players of this caliber even receive the amount of plate appearances to qualify for a batting title. The good majority of these players walked at decent rates, with some of them averaging extremely high walk rates to compensate for their strikeouts and help them get on base more often.

But what about how well these players did at the plate? These 43 player-seasons were obviously selected as among the best years of players with high strikeout rates, otherwise the players would not have been given so many opportunities to fail. Still, even after selecting the very best seasons with high strikeout rates, these 43 seasons still only added up to a total wOBA of .353 and a wRC+ of 114. In other words, among the best years of high strikeouts, the group as a whole was only 14 percent better than the league average.

Furthermore, when you break it down into two groups involving those that walked more often and less often, obviously you could see differences in the average quality of batter among the hitters involved. Looking at the 19 batters who had an average or better unintentional walk rate in the group, those hitters had a .373 wOBA and 127 wRC+ as a group. The sub-average walk rate group posted a .336 wOBA and 102 wRC+ as a group. There was little to no difference between the two groups in terms of strikeout rate, as the pro-walk group struck out 30 percent of the time while the no-walk group struck out 29.5 percent of the time.

What does all of this say? It says that even if you do post decent walk rates, on average it is very difficult to produce consistently amazing seasons like the one Stanton is currently posting. Only three players posted a better wOBA in these seasons than Stanton's current .398 mark, with three more seasons close behind. That means six total seasons even reached the heights that Stanton's 2012 reached with similar strikeout rates. Beyond that, only one season, Jim Thome's 2001 campaign with the Cleveland Indians, beat Stanton's season in terms of wRC+, as Thome's .291/.416/.624 year (.428 wOBA) was a whopping 66 percent better than the league average. It is exquisitely difficult to put up the season that Stanton has with the strikeouts that he is posting.

We also learned that it is extra difficult to do when you are not walking often enough. No player in the lower walk group posted a wOBA or wRC+ close to Stanton's this year, with the highest mark being the .378 wOBA and 138 wRC+ of, well, Giancarlo Stanton of 2011! Following 2011 Stanton, no other season had higher than a .366 wOBA, and the overall group was barely better than league average as a whole. So not only is it hard to put up a superb season like Stanton's 2012 with his strikeouts, but it is almost impossible to do with his currently poor walk rate.

Power and Hope

What are the options for Stanton for him to continue his success? Well, the evidence shows that it is just really difficult to be a consistently great hitter with strikeout rates this high and walk rates this low. The best bet for Stanton would be to lower his strikeouts and up the walks, and for at least, he has a model to follow: his 2011 version. Stanton struck out in 27.9 percent of his non-intentional walk PA last season and walked in 10.8 percent of those. He did that mostly by keeping the same approach he had as a rookie in 2010: make good contact when the ball is in the zone and let the pitchers pitch their way into walks. He chased a lot less in 2011 (31 percent swing percentage on pitches out of the zone) versus in 2012 (35 percent), so that would be a good start in both avoiding strikeouts and drawing more walks.

But the other method he could accomplish this is simply by continuing his run of power. We mentioned yesterday that his sort of power stands alongside some of the best power hitters of the decade, but it is unique in that it is coming at such a young age. I wondered before the season whether Stanton's power could actually improve over a level that was already among the best in baseball, but it seems this season he has taken it up a notch, and it is hard to imagine that this is simply a career year that will fizzle back down in a year or two. While it is unlikely that Stanton can improve on this season's power, he can certainly come closer to maintaining it and keep himself at least a great hitter rather than an elite one. Only two players in the lower walk group other than Stanton in 2011 had the sort of ISO that he is posting this year, and one of them, Ryan Howard, can be the model for a player who did not develop sufficient ability to draw walks or avoid strikeouts. Howard's season on that list, his 2008 campaign, was still good for a wRC+ of 129, thanks primarily to a .292 ISO that is close to Stanton's 2012 ISO of .314.

So no, it is not likely that Stanton can continue to be one of the elite hitters in baseball if he continues to strike out as much as he does and walk as little as he has this season. But his past has already shown that he can at least draw walks at a decent pace just by laying off the bad pitches to which he has been prone as of late. And if he never develops the sort of strike zone control that greats like Jim Thome developed, his power should still be good enough to at least make him a south Florida version of Ryan Howard, but in the outfield. Despite all the concerns, there are worse outcomes in baseball than "becoming Ryan Howard."

http://www.fishstripes.com/2012/9/13...me-ryan-howard

[Miamarlin21]

Is there any chance he is a super-two player this off-season?

[Valid]

So at what point do we finally start giving this kid credit for being a good defensive player? Regardless of what gets said about him looking terrible in right field around here, the guy has put up UZRs of of 8.7, 2.7, and 9.3 and UZR/150s of 12.6, 3.5, and 11.7 in his first three seasons, respectively.

Seems like he's pretty damn good out there.

[Mainge]

The problem I have with the defensive stats is that they don't account for where the fielder lines up.

[Bobbob1313]

Sure, but wouldn't that tend to even out over a big enough sample size?

[Mainge]

I don't know. Possibly.

[Bobbob1313]

I just feel like that would be something that falls under "noise". But with enough time it should begin to be less about positioning and more about skill and production.

Unless the Marlins' coaching staff for the last three years has been exceptional.

[Mainge]

Maybe.

[emkayseven]

MIAMI -- Mention the name Giancarlo Stanton, and the image of immense power and thunderous home runs immediately come to mind.

After all, Stanton is blessed with brute strength, evident by his 37 home runs this season for the Marlins.

As much attention Stanton receives for his power, the 22-year-old takes tremendous pride in being an all-around player. And his ability to make an impact with his glove has now been recognized.

Stanton has been named the Marlins' recipient of the Wilson Defensive Player of the Year Award.

This is the first time ever that Wilson has presented the awards, which are given to a player on each of the 30 big league clubs.

The winners were announced on Sunday on MLB Network.

Stanton played a spectacular right field all season, posting a .974 fielding percentage. Showcasing his arm, he added six assists.

His assists totals could have been more, but Stanton was hampered by injuries, limiting him to 123 games, with 117 in right field. He missed substantial time in Spring Training with a sore left knee.

But his biggest physical setback came on July 8, when he underwent surgery to remove two cartilage chips from his right knee. The procedure caused him to miss a month.

When healthy, Stanton is clearly a presence, whether he is at the plate or patrolling right field. In Atlanta early in the season, he had a terrific diving catch to rob Jason Heyward of a two-out hit.

Perhaps his best moment in the field came against the Phillies in August. At spacious Marlins Park, Stanton sprinted into the gap in right-center field, extended his 6-foot-5 frame and hauled in a long drive off the bat of Erik Kratz.

Another standout defensive moment came in late August when he dove in shallow right field to snare a shot by the Nationals' Kurt Suzuki. The play helped Ricky Nolasco get out of a jam.

"He's a complete player," Nolasco said after the game. "Everybody is obviously aware of his talents offensively, but there are things people don't see. He's putting in the time and work to be an all-around good player."

While Stanton hauled in the Wilson Defensive Player of the Year award for a Marlin, he wasn't able to corral the honor for the top defensive player in the National League. Atlanta center fielder Michael Bourn came away with that honor.

In the American League, Angels center fielder Mike Trout was the top overall winner.

The best overall team award went to the Atlanta Braves.

http://miami.marlins.mlb.com/news/ar...s_mia&c_id=mia

.974 fielding percentage and 6 assists!!!!!

[Miamarlin21]

The great Giancarlo tuns 23 today.

/mancrush

[Namaste]

Man, 23 year old fit guy who hits lasers out of the ballpark.

Think of all the TRIM this kid must pull.

Unreal, boysssssssssssssssss.


Miamarlin21, if you walked in his shoes for 47 seconds your head would explode.