Will Giancarlo Stanton Deliver a Cooperstown Speech?
Statcast released bat tracking data to the general public this week, and having looked at the numbers in full, it’s hard not to have Giancarlo Stanton on the brain. It’s also hard not to have some mixed feelings about the gargantuan slugger. His power is awe-inspiring, whether it results in line drives that the cameras have trouble keeping up with, casual bombs that touch the clouds, or (and this is my personal favorite) the 121-mph quarantine-era blast that went along with one of the loudest expletives uttered on television in baseball history:
But amidst all that festive sphere-crushing, there’s also a note of sadness. Stanton’s 59 home runs in 2017, his age-27 season, brought his career total to what was then the fourth-most home runs through that age (Mike Trout has since surpassed it). It felt a bit like a warning shot across the bows of Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, and Babe Ruth, all of whom had fewer home runs at that point in their careers. And as much as seeing him trade in Marlins teal for pinstripes annoyed me as an Orioles fan, there was something narratively satisfying about Stanton heading to the House that Followed the House That Ruth Built, to succeed where Griffey and A-Rod hadn’t and claim a home run crown of his own. Since then, however, Stanton has only hit 144 homers and, thanks to myriad injuries, has only appeared in 140 games in a season once. With 411 homers and a 35th birthday that falls a couple of weeks after this year’s World Series, the question has now become whether he’ll even get to 500 homers, not 714, 755, or 762.
It was no surprise to see Stanton rank so highly in the new bat tracking data. After all, his peak exit velocities have been well chronicled, and of the players with 25 homers in the Statcast era, he takes the cake for having the highest average exit velocity on his long balls. Stanton has been healthy this year and is on-pace for the most homers he’s hit since that 2017 season, but the reality is that he’s a far more limited player than he once was. Nobody would ever confuse Stanton for Joey Votto or Juan Soto, but he used to draw more walks and hit for a better average. And while it’s hard to remember now, he also had some real defensive value when he was young; the Giancarlo Stanton of 10 years ago could have faked center field a bit if the Marlins had had the need (though with Marcell Ozuna and Christian Yelich on the roster, they didn’t).
Just to give you an idea of what could have been, I re-ran Stanton’s 2018-2023 projections at every point in his career through 2017. I’m only going to use the current model, not the ones contemporaneous to those years, since my goal here isn’t to validate ZiPS but to get an apples-to-apples comparison of how the type of player Stanton was projected to be has changed. For seasons after 2017, Stanton’s actual performance is mixed into the projection, so the eerie accuracy you’ll see after 2023 is due to ZiPS knowing what actually happened rather than any magical omniscience on the computer’s part. I’ve also included Stanton’s projected final career WAR, home runs, and hits after each season. The projection for the 2020 COVID season is truncated:
| After | BA | OBP | SLG | AB | H | 2B | HR | RBI | BB | OPS+ | Car WAR | Car HR | Car H | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | .249 | .334 | .545 | 2580 | 643 | 139 | 204 | 562 | 317 | 134 | 62.2 | 615 | 2134 | 17.4 |
| 2011 | .248 | .343 | .549 | 2643 | 656 | 141 | 214 | 571 | 357 | 138 | 68.1 | 616 | 2127 | 20.0 |
| 2012 | .268 | .355 | .618 | 2759 | 738 | 154 | 267 | 689 | 347 | 158 | 91.6 | 668 | 2388 | 29.3 |
| 2013 | .247 | .349 | .551 | 2493 | 617 | 136 | 205 | 563 | 369 | 140 | 69.8 | 599 | 2056 | 21.2 |
| 2014 | .269 | .387 | .616 | 2721 | 733 | 147 | 264 | 704 | 500 | 168 | 100.5 | 643 | 2426 | 34.5 |
| 2015 | .274 | .379 | .655 | 2273 | 624 | 118 | 249 | 661 | 373 | 175 | 90.6 | 654 | 2174 | 31.1 |
| 2016 | .265 | .369 | .606 | 2413 | 640 | 122 | 233 | 643 | 379 | 160 | 78.9 | 655 | 2279 | 27.7 |
| 2017 | .287 | .383 | .651 | 2874 | 824 | 162 | 295 | 774 | 430 | 175 | 98.0 | 719 | 2668 | 38.4 |
| 2018 | .252 | .337 | .525 | 2918 | 736 | 160 | 210 | 561 | 351 | 131 | 62.1 | 617 | 2259 | 20.5 |
| 2019 | .252 | .338 | .513 | 2285 | 575 | 128 | 156 | 410 | 287 | 130 | 53.3 | 531 | 1973 | 14.3 |
| 2020 | .257 | .344 | .504 | 2040 | 524 | 109 | 131 | 352 | 259 | 131 | 48.2 | 479 | 1798 | 11.4 |
| 2021 | .262 | .344 | .493 | 2160 | 565 | 105 | 131 | 379 | 262 | 128 | 45.4 | 507 | 1800 | 10.6 |
| 2022 | .256 | .341 | .493 | 2119 | 542 | 89 | 145 | 382 | 267 | 130 | 47.5 | 502 | 1823 | 10.9 |
| 2023 | .243 | .328 | .485 | 2031 | 494 | 83 | 135 | 359 | 251 | 121 | 42.8 | 485 | 1758 | 8.4 |
You can see how quickly Stanton’s career expectation eroded during his Yankees years. At the time of the trade, ZiPS saw him fighting with Ruth; after last season, it has him dueling with Fred McGriff. There’s nothing wrong with being the Crime Dog, but for a player who had such a great start to his career, and who has as much raw power as Stanton has, it feels rather underwhelming.
Stanton not being completely cooked this season has led to a modest uptick in those career numbers — the average projection now gets him over the 500 homer mark, with 513. But “not being done” and “being good” are two very different things. Stanton is hitting homers and has avoided the injured list, but he’s only gotten back to the limited version of himself we saw in 2021 and 2022; this isn’t some late-career renaissance, at least so far. It’s impossible to completely contain Stanton’s power, but pitchers have gotten better at nibbling just around the strike zone. Stanton now makes contact with pitches out of the zone at a higher rate than he did in his prime, while also making contact with fewer in-zone pitches, and the combination has served to contain the damage to only the occasional 118-mph humiliation.
Will it be enough to make it to Cooperstown? Short of a more impressive resurgence, I can’t see myself voting for Stanton. I just don’t think there’s enough separation between him and Nelson Cruz, though Stanton is aided by not having a PED suspension on his record. While I’m obviously more of a stathead than the average baseball writer, I expect the median Hall voter to be more statistically inclined in eight or nine years than they are now. ZiPS doesn’t project Stanton’s final JAWS score to budge by career-end, leaving him around 40th all-time among right fielders, in the neighborhood of players like Jack Clark, Rocky Colavito, Rusty Staub, and Dave Parker, none of whom came close to induction (though the Cobra hovered around 15% of the vote for 15 years). There’s always the Veterans Committee, but even I don’t like to attempt to project what that motley crew will do in any given year. Plus, the organization of the committee will probably be overhauled half a dozen times in the next 20 years.
Regardless of what the fates have in store, Stanton will have finished with a career that nearly every big leaguer would be proud to have, and those of us still around in 50 years will still be talking about his moon shots, whether or not he ever gives a speech on a hot summer day in upstate New York.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
I’ve been hoping for this article for some time. In 2017 it looks like he has a chance to beat Ruth’s homer record and finish as the greatest non-steroid power hitter in a while. Now it seems like he’ll be lucky to get to half of that projected 98 WAR.
I think it shows how difficult it is to be effective into your mid-30s without PEDs (presumably).
We say goodbye to our stars too early these days.
I just turned 40. For the past few years I have compiled an “All Older Than Me Team.” I can’t do it anymore. Now there are a few pitchers, many of them injured, and Joey Votto in the minors.
In 2021 or 2022 was the last year I could field a complete team. And then I had Albert Pujols in the OF and Yadier Molina at 3b, yes Molina has appeared at 3b.
I didn’t think it would unravel so quickly. I remember a game in 2007 where the Mets had 4 guys in the 40s in the starting lineup: LF Moises Alou, P Tom Glavine, 3b Jeff Conine, C Sandy Alomar Jr., with Julio Franco on the bench. The Giants of that era had a lot of guys in their 40s: Bonds, Alou, Finley, Omar Vizquel.
Nowadays, teams are handing out extremely lengthy contracts which take players into their 40s, but it is uncertain if the teams intend on keeping those guys on the roster for the duration. SD, my team, has Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts signed through 2033 which will be the year they both turn 41.
“I remember a game in 2007 where the Mets had 4 guys in the 40s in the starting lineup: LF Moises Alou, P Tom Glavine, 3b Jeff Conine, C Sandy Alomar Jr., with Julio Franco on the bench.”
Looking at the game log, I can only find one with 3 of them–
Alomar, Alou and Glavine on 08/23/2007. Conine PH’ed, after Glavine was out of the game and Julio Franco was probably on the DL or something (didn’t play at all in August).
Two days later it was Alomar, Conine and El Duque, also 3x at 40+.
Thanks for wasting that time for a gotcha
I used to have Nelson Cruz; now the only theoretically “active” player older than me is Rich Hill.
You all can just cut it out. Now there are probably several MLB MANAGERS who are younger than me!
Ok, now I am REALLY depressed because I just looked at the actual list. I remember when I looked at all the MLB managers and thought they were all a bunch of old guys, many of which who played and I was too young to see them during their playing career. Now, there are only EIGHT MLB managers who are older than me, and any of them who actually had MLB playing careers of any note, I remember seeing ALL of them play.
There is a blog called Cardboard Gods and he wrote a phenomenal post about the very same thing – how you looked at all the players as a kid and they all seemed so much older than you, some of the older guys seemed legitimately old. Then, one day you wake up and realize that guy that you still think of as older than you is now several years younger than you.
I look at Phil Niekro at the end of his career and I cannot believe I am now 10 years older than he was then.
Don’t know if we can post links here but it’s pretty easy to google. Cardboard Gods, Tom Hilgendorf, just looked it up and the blog post is from 3/18/08.
I haven’t read the blog in years but he started it as a way to cope with some depression that he was dealing with and pulled out his box of baseball cards from his youth and started writing about them. Most of the cards are from the 70’s, some from the 80’s. Some posts are good, some aren’t, but it was an interesting read as a baseball fan of roughly the same age as the writer.
Phil Niekro at 48 looked about 85. I would guess it’s the smoking and medical care that wasn’t as good?
And lots of hair dye today.
Yeah, Neikro let his hair go gray and had a knuckleballers body. Hell of a pitcher though, but he did seem older than he actually was.
I may be misremembering, but I think fangraphs occasionally ran excerpts of that blog for a time.
I love Cardboard Gods. Haven’t looked it for a few years – thanks for the reminder!
Unless Satchel Paige revives himself and comes out of retirement, I don’t think there’s anyway a player can be older than me. In fairness, I’m not that old, but even Julio Franco getting one more AB won’t save me!
I’m pretty sure the last active player older than myself was Jamie Moyer. . . .
You got lucky as he lingered into his late 40s.
Might be Mariano Rivera. He was my last one.
For me it was Fernando Rodney.
Colon/Moyer might be the last active older player for like 70% of baseball fans older than 40.
I suspect teams handing out contracts to players expecting them to play at 40 are not expecting them to play at 40. They’re simply stretching out the payments and lowering the AAV. Building a payroll roster means there will be a mix of low-cost young players, higher-cost older players, and some dead money from players cut. Teams absolutely factor that into their planning. It’s some fans who don’t seem to understand this concept.
What homer record does Ruth still hold that Stanton might have had a chance at beating?
Whoops! That table shows that after his big 59 homer season ZiPS projected he would have topped Ruth’s career total but that wouldn’t be a record. I misspoke.
If he hits 500 homers he will absolutely make the hall of fame. If the writers don’t put him in, then a committee will. Probably just like McGriff, immediately and unanimously.
I don’t think the writers will put him in, but I think you are right about the committee. McGriff is a good comparison.
It probably helps that he is relatively well liked. Maybe not as much as guys like Aaron Judge or Andrew McCutchen or Curtis Granderson or Sean Casey, he doesn’t have that sort of personality. But people like him.
McCutcheon is 1000% going to be a Veteran’s Committee guy.
And I won’t be mad about it!
He is a good man and a good teammate but no longer contributes to the overall strength of the Yankees. His negative contribution is every part of the game takes away the positive from his Home Runs.
The best part (as a Yankees hater) is that both the Yankees and Marlins somehow managed to both screw themselves over with that trade.
Seems like they Yankees are doing okay. At least the last time I checked.
I hope to hell Stanton never gets into the Hall of Fame. He is going to end up with several years of playing horrible baseball.
Unlike Pujols, Miggy, Trammell, Griffey, and Tony Perez.
Stanton has an MVP to his name, which carries a lot of juice, but I don’t think 500 HR’s gets him in.
Carlos Delgado and Adam Dunn are two guys who came close to 500 that didn’t have PED stigma, and neither made it past the first ballot. Stanton is a much better player than Dunn, but I think Delgado is a close comp; I don’t think Delgado was 27 HR away from being a HOFer.
As you said, they only came close. There has never been a 500+ HR candidate not connected to PEDs who has not been elected save for those not yet eligible.
Delgado was 94.6% of the way there, and got 3.8% of the vote in his only year on the ballot. Even if you could optimize where those extra 27 HR go to maximize the case for Delgado, I don’t think it builds enough of a narrative.
In an era where more HRs are being hit, the bar will probably need to be raised a little bit. Plus it should be way more than just about HRs anyway.
Coming close and actually making it to 500 is a big difference. So far no 500 Player without roid allegations is out of the hall.
Dann would have been an interesting challenge to that and probably not make it but he retired before 500 and thus the “automatic” is still going.
Stanton also might not make it but still at 500 and an mvp which Dunn doesn’t have he would have a strong case.
That being said I’m skeptical he will even get to 500 at the rate he gets injured and how alarming his k rate is.
Players who strike out 30+% can lose it very quickly and go Chris Davis.
This year will be big for him. If he gets hurt big time again and ends this year with say 15 homers his chances drop a lot. But if he has a 40 homer season and ends up this year with 440 Homers that would carry him a big step toward the finish line.
I mean, I guess if he’s introducing Aaron Judge or something…
I’ve said it in a previous article: Stanton is in if he has a Big Papi – type run in the playoffs on the big stage. That would put him over the top.
If he blows past 500 I think he’ll still make it in. If he stays healthy, I think he can still make it.
Honestly, I see Stanton as the Michael Young of homers. If Young had stuck around long enough to get to 3000 hits, he may have been the first person with that many to miss Cooperstown. I don’t see Stanton as much different. Higher peak and overall level, sure, but the lack of consistent success is the same. I don’t think he’s worthy of induction either way, tbh. And I’m a big hall guy.
Funny thing about 3,000 hits is there is always somebody that seems like they might make a run at it and raise the question of whether they deserve it despite clearly not quite being that type of player, and yet almost nobody that isn’t great ever made it. Young, Damon, Markakis, Juan Pierre (he had approx 1,400 hits when he turned 30 and was churning out 200 hits a year) all looked like they might make a run at it, but it’s hard to make 3,000. A lot of guys who are “on pace” are low-power volume guys who suddenly find themselves out of the league once they stop hitting .300 or can no longer play a prime defensive position (Andrus and Starlin Castro, for example – both were up young and had a lot of hits at age 30 but aged out of SS and either ceased to an every day guy for Andrus or out of baseball for Castro). The closest you can come to a guy that was just an accumulator who got to 3,000 was Lou Brock with his 43.2 fWAR, and that was just a different era.
(Was going to include Luis Gonzalez and Steve Finley in the guys making a run at 3,000 but so much of their career work was done in their 30’s, they probably never had a legit shot at it even though they both eclipsed 2,500 hits)
Not to mention that Brock’s total is dragged down by pre-tracking defensive stats and doesn’t give him credit for non-SB baserunning.
I really think he’d end up in the mid-50s using today’s methods…and that he’d be a Rule of Cool guy for whom even stats-heavy writers would vote.
Yeah, I think he is a guy that WAR undervalues due to what you say. He was also a great post-season performer in 3 WS, .391/.424/.655
The other thing is his prime coincided with the lowest offensive period in baseball history, 1965-1970. He probably has 150-200 more hits by just putting him in a different era.
That wouldn’t affect WAR, but, his counting #’s would be even higher if he had come along 6-7 years later.
He’s at 47.2 WAR at Baseball Projection, Sean Smith’s new version of wins above replacement, this includes non-SB baserunning.
Regress a few outlier TZ years to “normal” bad, and he clears 50…with the postseason bonus that PC1970 alludes to and the steals record.
Lou Brock holds a pretty prominent place on my “not the Hall of WAR” list, haha – Vladdy’s there too.
Al Oliver is another one. 2546 hits through age 35 and coming off of seasons of 204 and 184 hits. Seemed like he would get there easily. Didn’t even get 200 more hits the rest of his career.
Of course, there are also guys who are the opposite. Paul Molitor for example. Only 1203 hits through age 29 but ends up with 2000+ hits after that.
Oliver is a good one..& even weirder:
That 204 hit season was his best year & he almost won MVP (led the league in BA & had 22 HR & 109 RBI). The 184 hit season he hit .300 but his power evaporated.
Then the next year he had 0 HR in 430 AB’s & was below replacement level & then was part-time player his last year & below replacement level again.
The cliff came fast for him.
I think that’s what people fail to appreciate when we look at “traditional aging curves” – you have to use something as an approximation, so we may see someone’s projection go with a smooth curve from 3.0 WAR–>2.5–>2.0–>1.4–>0.8–>0.1 or something similar.
But in real life you often see cliffs: and that’s more like 3.0 –> 2.3 –> 0.3 –> 36 more ABs and call it a career, or something like that.
And as cheap and as good as young talented players can be nowadays, who can blame a team? Want to give 500 ABs to a has-been whose best years are a half-decade ago, or see what you have in your organization’s 11th best prospect?
Jose Reyes is similar to Andrus & Castro. He had 900 hits after his age 25 season. So is Garry Templeton, had over 900 hits thru age 25 season. You could make the “150 hits for 12 years gets them to 2,700 at age 37, then they can bounce around for a few years” logic.
But, then injuries/quality of play knocked them down, just like it did with Andrus & Castro.
Another commonality with many of them is a so-so batting eye. Castro & Templeton looked good knocking out 200 hits & hitting .310 (with a .340 OBP)..when that BA drops to .260-.270, that .300 OBP doesn’t play & their PT drops as a result.
Great call on Templeton and Reyes – both up at 20, both had 1,500 hits by the time they turned 30 and could have been on their way, but both played their last season at 35 ending with just over 2,000 hits. Reyes also fits the “can’t play SS any more” type also as he played as much 2B and 3B as SS his last 3 years and it’s harder to carry a bat like that at those 2 positions than it is SS.
(Reyes is a great “what if he’d stayed healthy” with three 5 WAR seasons in a row from ages 23-25 and another a few years later at age 28. If he stays healthy, he probably gets in the neighborhood of 3,000 hits, 1,600+ runs and 1,000 RBI (from the leadoff spot mostly) and probably clears 55 WAR and we might be talking a HOFer)
Edgar Renteria was another guy who had 3,000 hit chatter in his late 20s. Then he turned into a pumpkin at 31 and was done at 34.
Good call. He had OVER 1900 hits thru his age 30 season. He easily fits in the “160 hits for 5 more years, then slowly move to part time work & he’ll be there by age 39” logic.
As a Tiger fan, I remember being so excited when they traded for him & that was the year his performance cratered.
Also if Luis Gonzalez made 3000 hits, he’d probably also make 60 WAR.
Vizquel was the closest, in my opinion. He was only 123 hits shorts and absolutely didn’t deserve to get into the Hall, though I think he would have if it hadn’t come out that he’s a piece of crap human being. I’m glad he didn’t get in, and I’m glad he didn’t get to 3000 hits.
On of the fun “what ifs” in baseball history to me is “what would the Hall of Fame do if a legitimately bad player got 3,000 hits?” It came extremely close to happening with Doc Cramer, who almost got to 3,000 hits despite a career total of 9.9 fWAR.
Cramer played for 20 years, and retired with 2,705 hits. The first few years of his career he spent as a 4th outfielder for the A’s, with Connie Mack starting Bing Miller over him from 1930 to midseason 1932. He had 734 total plate appearances those 3 years; the next 3 years, he’d have 2,122 PA’s. Subtract 734 from 2,122; subtract out Cramer’s 5.8% career walk rate; multiply the resulting 1,308 AB’s by Cramer’s career .296 BA, and you get 387 hits that Cramer potentially missed out by being a 4th outfielder for 3 years instead of a starter, more than enough to put him over the 3,000 hit line. So, it’s at least plausible that he could have gotten to 3,000 hits if he’d been used as a starter earlier in his career.
Doc Cramer was a bad baseball player. He was good at precisely two aspects of playing baseball: he stayed healthy, and he was very good at avoiding strikeouts (he had the lowest K% in the AL 4 times in his career). He mostly played Center Field in his career, but he was a poor fielder. He was a poor baserunner with no power (in about 10,000 career PA’s, he had 37 total home runs and 62 stolen bases). As mentioned, he only had a 5.8% career walk rate, which explains how he was able to lead his league in AB’s 7 times despite only leading in PA’s once. His super-low 3.5% career strikeout rate allowed him to get a lot of hits despite his pedestrian .305 career BABIP and total lack of power, but his batting average was nothing special; he only finished in the top 10 in his league twice in his career. He only had over 2 fWAR twice in his career, with 2.6 in a partial season in 1932 that convinced Connie Mack to turn him into a starter, and 2.2 in 1935. Those were the only seasons of his career he had a wRC+ over 100 (111 in 1932; 105 in 1935); for his career, he was at 87. Of his 9.9 career fWAR, 3.6 came in 1943-1945 when the rest of MLB was off at war. Other than during WWII and those two seasons he had over 2 fWAR, he only had one other season over 1 fWAR (1.9 in 1934).
Cramer is perhaps best summed up by the 5 seasons he had with the Red Sox from 1936-1940. During those 5 years, Cramer got 3,400 PA’s (680 per season). He hit .302/.349/.378, with 1 total home run, an 82 wRC+, and a total of 1.4 fWAR. His 2.9% k rate was quite literally the only thing he had going for him. Cramer was a legitimately bad player, the type of guy who’d be lucky to be a 4th outfielder today. He almost got to 3,000 hits, and the Hall of Fame would have had a quandary on its hands.
I really want a mediocre-to-bad player to get 3000 for the sheer hilarity of the HOF discourse. Unfortunately in the modern era with our understanding of stats and player valuation I don’t see it happening, as you mentioned a guy like Cramer would not be an everyday player today.
For a truly mediocre or worse player to get 3000 he would have to play forever and probably stick at either SS or CF into his mid-late 30s, since the bat wouldn’t be good enough to play everyday elsewhere. Also he couldn’t be too good defensively. He would probably have to be well liked and respected around the league to stick around as a “veteran leader” while his skills diminish. It’s really hard to imagine a good but not great defensive SS/CF with generally below average offense sticking around long enough to compile that many hits, it’s quite the needle to thread. I actually think it’s more likely that someone breaks the current HR or hits record.
Luis Arraez.
Could happen, but Arraez is basically a one tool player (of course that one tool is 80+ grade hit). Much as I’d like to see it I feel like he falls out of the league at some point in his early 30s when the hits stop falling. If he has an unlucky BABIP season he’s losing his lineup spot unfortunately.
Arraez isn’t going to make it because the one aspect of his skill set that makes him unique will eventually erode some, as will his playing time. And if he does make it, that means he ended up elevating his game in other areas as he aged. I think that’s quite unlikely.
I won’t say Arraez has no shot. . . .but he has no shot. He’s 27 and not even halfway to 1,500, let alone on pace for 3,000. He didn’t have a qualified season until he was 25. He has one 200 hit season. For some undeserving lesser (but still good, to be fair) player to make 3,000, he’d have to be up early and just rack up massive hit totals in his 20’s before age crept in.
With the sabermetric revolution, there are just a lot fewer guys pursuing the contact and BA model required to rack up the hits. In the 15 years from 2009-2023, there were 30 qualified seasons of 200 hits and the only guys with multiple seasons are Ichiro and Altuve (& Altuve hasn’t done it since 2017).
***EDIT: Both Jeter and Cano got in there with 2 also. I also note that there have only been three 200 hit seasons since 2019, all last year – Acuna, Freeman and Arraez
Go back to 1977-1991 and even with 4 fewer teams there are still 62 such seasons with 14 guys having multiple seasons led by Boggs with 7. (Shockingly, Rod Carew was not one of the multiple guys as his last 200+ season was 1977)
And the 1977-1991 period suffers with 1981 being a strike year. Sabermetrics removed a lot of fun from baseball.
This was almost Omar Vizquel
Bill Buckner probably never got 3000 hit chatter during his career, but he did pick up over 2700 hits with under 20 fWAR. Another guy who never struck out, never walked, hit for little power, had no defensive value, and played for a very long time.
Now that would have been a scorcher of a Hall of Fame debate.
Bill Buckner is a great one. He was highly regarded during his playing days because he was a high AVG guy in an era when AVG was king. Won the 1980 batting title, lifetime AVG .289. A minor star type.
He went on the ballot in 96 – if he got back 40 or so hits he lost during the 1981 strike, and finds a couple hundred elsewhere over his career (he was injured a decent amount), there would have been a ton of articles about the quiet superstar under our noses this whole time and he would have gone in.
John McNamara said the reason he was on the field to make the error in 86 was because he wanted to reward him for his career by having him on the field when they clinched.
Isn’t that the same reasoning Ron Washington was suspected for leaving Nelson Cruz in RF in game six of what should have been the Rangers first World Series championship in 2011? Cruz was never a good OFer, the Rangers had a two-run lead, and a gold glove caliber OFer in Endy Chavez sitting on the bench.
Technically, the first guy with 3000+ hits not to get in was Pete Rose.
I thought Johnny Damon might have been that interesting player to get to 3,000 hits and challenge the automatic entry. His career WAR, btw, is more than 20 pts, higher than Young’s, he was a CFer, stole a lot of bases, was on two world championship teams, yet he wasn’t a HOFer to me, but he would have created an interesting discussion about what is a HOFer. From my youth, Dave Kingman had a legitimate chance to reach 500 career HRs. He finished in the mid-400s, hit 35 his last year, IIRC, before huffing off into retirement and sending a dead rat to a reporter his last year. (BTW I’m not sure these happened at the same time, but in my mind I’d like to believe they did!). He had a few strong years, but he was not a good player. Some actually compare Stanton to Kingman, and that is a huge injustice to Stanton, who will finish his career with likely more than double Kingman’s WAR. Stanton was an MVP and a good OFer before injuries set in. Stanton was not a one-dimensional player, as Brian Kenny likes to call him. Kingman certainly was.
Thing is, no one has reached 3,000 hits cleanly or 500 HRs cleanly without being elected to the HOF, so that is probably still a reason to give any player who reaches those milestones a strong look and debate.
Excellent article. The last paragraph says it: Whether or not he’s officially enshrined, the majesty of his baseball obliterations ensure his enduring fame.
My gut reaction is “absolutely not”. If there is such a thing as “empty power” it’s Stanton. He doesn’t come with average, defense, health, baserunning, basically *anything* else. It would be a commentary on just how much value your position on the all time HR leaderboard holds for voters
I’m not sure I’d put him in either regardless of the HR total, but do think the idea that he was mostly a one dimensional player is recency bias. From 2010-2021 he was a .268/.358 hitter with passable to average defense.
Your final sentence makes him seem one-dimensional to me.
thats not one dimensional though. average defense by definition is a dimension. there is value in average.
That’s also an excellent OBP over the first half of his career.
The MLB league average line for those years is ~.250/.320, so he was above average both in the hit tool and (moreso) ability to get on base generally. In his peak years he was very good to great (.288/395).
The only thing he really didn’t do that well was run the bases, but as an example he was still 13/14 in SBs in his age 24 season, so he wasn’t a total zero there either. I think a lot of his other abilities were overshadowed by generational raw power, but it’s pretty unfair to him to call him one dimensional for most of his career imo.
He was a damn good RF in Miami!
It’s a shame that age and injury have turned him into Dave Kingman
“empty power” is misleading. the reason some of us complain about “empty batting average” is because batting average is an incomplete stat – it values every hit the same. someone hitting .300 could have hit exclusively singles, another hitting .300 could have exclusively doubles and homers (theoretically). its “empty” average when its a “good” batting average but no power and/or not supplemented by additional on base ability, aka the two things the lead to runs.
you cant, by definition, have empty power because power is the fastest way to create runs. there’s value on offense in being a 250/300/470+ hitter. hell theres value in being a 220/280/470+ hitter, even if it doesnt look pretty (to some)
One way someone could have “empty power” is if they hit a lot of HRs but not a lot of other XBHs, and it’s more an “all or nothing”, and maybe strands a lot of runners because he hits a lot of solo bombs and doesn’t do as well in the “clutch” (for those who believe in this sort of thing as not just being random chance). If you come up with a man on third and less than two outs and don’t homer, and strand the guy on third 90% of the time, then that could be considered “empty power”, for example.
Empty power is a guy like Dave Kingman, Rob Deer, Joe Carter; hits a lot of bombs but doesn’t do enough else with the bat. I looked at the HR leaders for 1986-1993–Carter is first, Deer is sixth, each of them had a 110 wRC+ while the guys in between were putting 136 to 151. Each of them did have some secondary skill–Deer’s walk rate was decent and Carter didn’t strike out much.)
I do think that it’s a mistake to fold defensive performance into empty power/average. When Ryan Doumit put up -3.1 WAR in 2008 while hitting 318/357/508, it’s not that his average or slugging was empty, it’s that he was such an awful pitch framer that it vitiated his bat.
That’s pretty much what I said. And I remember watching Kingman play in the 70s mostly when he was on the Mets. It wasn’t just that he was all or nothing (HR vs K), he would swing at way too many pitches that were more than a foot out of the strike zone, way more than practically (and probably actually) anyone else in the era was doing. I know the end result is the same if you strike out on a pitch out of the zone vs in the zone, but it’s a lot easier to take as a fan if he’s swinging at pitches he’s SUPPOSED to swing at, vs taking a walk on those unhittable pitches every now and then to at least give someone a chance to drive him in.
Oh there is totally such a thing as empty power. That was way too common of a skill set, especially when power was less common but teams were in love with it.
Ron Kittle, Steve Balboni, Henry Rodriguez, Bob Hamelin, Sam Horn, and the king of empty power, or at least the deluxe version, Dave Kingman.
I won’t include him because of who he is, but based on results and production, Bo Jackson is also as empty power as it gets.
And lots of empty power with some walks. Ken Phelps, Rob Deer, Cecil Fielder, Kevin Maas, Pat Seery, Russ Branyan, Adam Dunn, Ryan Howard, Marcus Thames, Pedro Alvarez, Mark Reynolds. I guess Deer in the range of average in the OF, but none of these guys could field, run, or hit for average, but they all had light tower, league-leading type of power.
And tons others that had great power, though not elite. Phil Plantier, Franklin Stubbs, Mike Jacobs, Paul Sorrento, Brandon Moss, Pete Incaviglia, Deron Johnson…
Gorman Thomas says “What about me?”
Russell Branyan and Richie Sexson have entered the chat
(I remain unclear if those were two different guys or just one guy who used an alias sometimes)
Russell Branyan was on the list, I figured everyone would assume that meant Richie Sexson too 🤣
He’s like a deluxe deluxe Kingman. Maybe not quite empty enough, his 12.7% BB rate might be too redeeming of a quality as he was worth the same WAR as Kingman in 2000 less ABs. We’d have to split his career into two parts.
Jekyll Gorman hit 268 HR in 4766 AB, a HR every 17.8 AB, worth 20.4 AB. From 1978 to 1982 he was just a good ballplayer, he was worth 19.8 of his WAR, and considering 1981 was a strike year he was a solid 4+ WAR/year guy.
The Hyde Gorman had 93 HR in the other 2200 ABs and he was worth .6 WAR.
So certainly some versions of Thomas were the epitome of empty power, but probably not career Thomas.
I put the career totals of Kingman and the other guys below.
If it’s only good 20-25 HR per year power, then yeah, it’s empty power if not supplemented by other skills.
However, if the guy is routinely knocking out 35+ homers during most years, very rarely would he not have at least close to a league average wRC+.
Rare yes, but not impossible. Tony Batista managed a 78 wRC+ with 32 HR in 2004. He was below replacement level.
I mean I know you decided you were going to disagree no matter what, but I gave you a list. It wasn’t exhaustive, it was meant to illustrate the concept of empty power. These guys were so empty they lost their job. If they don’t meet your criteria for empty power, you’re at the point of denial and moving goalposts.
Steve Balboni hit 181 HR in 3180 AB, a HR every 17.57 AB. He was worth 2.8 WAR for his career.
Bob Hamelin hit 67 HR in 1272 AB, a HR every 19 AB. He was worth 2.5 WAR for his career.
Kevin Maas hit 65 HR in 1248 AB, his career was worth 1.7 WAR.
Ron Kittle hit 176 HR in 2708 AB, HR every 16.2 AB. He was worth 5.2 WAR for his career.
Bo Jackson hit 141 HR in 2393 AB, a HR every 17 AB, and was a positive on the bases for his career and he was worth 7.7 WAR in his career.
Henry Rodriguez hit 160 HR in 3031 AB, a HR every 18.9 AB. He was worth 5.7 WAR for his career.
Sam Horn hit 62 HR in 1040 AB, a HR 16.77 AB. His 11.1% BB rate helped him accumulate a whopping 2.9 WAR in his career.
And the deluxe version, Dave Kingman hit 442 HR in 6677 AB, a HR every 15.1 AB, he was worth 20.4 WAR in his almost 2000 game career.
Mark Reynolds hit 298 HR in 5432 AB, a HR every 18.2 AB, worth 10.9 WAR in his career.
Harold Barnes is in the hall of fame. Stats don’t matter (sorry Jaffe). Criteria is 1) did the writers like you, and 2) do your peers in the hall like you.
Bingo.
Harold Barnes is most definitely, absolutely, unequivocally not in the Hall of Fame.
It’s not just Baines, Tommy McCarthy, George Kelly, Fred Lindstrom….
To make the Hall of Fame, I think Stanton would have to reach 600 homers with about 2300 hits or so.
If he barely reaches 500 homers, he would probably have fewer than 2000 hits, and that won’t cut it.
If you ignore steroids, does Mark McGwire make the HOF? Big Mac has the highest HR% ever, but a low BA, not even close to 2000 hits, and his 1b defense was average at best. I think a clean McGwire with the same numbers has to wait for a long time.
This is where I think zooming out helps. McGwire’s 5 year run, highlighted by 1998’s record setting year, qualifies the “fame” part of of HOF. He was part of the summer that writers consider saved baseball and wasn’t like Maris who had his 2 MVP’s and a few good years. McGwire set the rookie record for hrs, hit 70 and 65 (and 50 a couple more times) and finished with nearly 600 home runs.
Zoom back in and he’s got 62 BWAR and 68FWAR with his nearly 600 bombs and record setting seasons. Should be an easy yes without steroids (I think easy yes with them, but that’s another conversation).
While that’s true, the next question is what would his #’s have looked like without steroids? Would he have stayed healthy?
To me, that’s a difference between him & a guy like Bonds, who was a 3-4 time MVP even before he allegedly started using in 1998. We KNOW Bonds was great without ‘roids.
I think that’s a legit question.
We don’t KNOW when Bonds started using steroids, how often, or what type.
We THINK because of his size.
We KNEW Dee Gordon wasn’t on roids.
Nah, we know. Bonds had zero home runs of 450+ feet between 1986 and 1999. He had 21 home runs of 450+ feet between 2000 and 2004.
No. You don’t. This is FG and you guys are making sweeping assumptions based on the eye test? Or known liars lies?
I think that Bonds started doing steroids at the same time everyone thinks he did. But that’s all we can, think. We don’t know.
Again, Dee Gordon. He was caught using a synthetic steroid and testosterone. So the eye test – especially for the group of analytically inclined pundits that brought sabermetrics into the mainstream and out of Bill James’s basement and a dingy Holiday Inn boardroom in Boston – is really hypocritical to use, especially when claimed as empirical evidence.
His ex testified under oath that Bonds’ 1999 injury came because he didn’t know how to use steroids properly, and he blew out a tendon.
According to McGwire, he didn’t start taking steroids until he used them to help heal his injuries in 1993-94. He was already an established superstar before then.
Besides, it shouldn’t matter whether he or Bonds were theoretically on track for the Hall of Fame before they used PEDs. Either it violates the character clause in each voter’s view or it doesn’t. It doesn’t make sense to try and use some half-baked in-between justification for some of them.
Canseco said that McGwire had been juicing since the beginning.
McGwire in his rookie year of 1987 looked pretty lanky and hit 49 HR. He looked like a completely different person in 1998. Just looking at him, it seemed like McGwire grew when coming back from injury in 1995 or so. It’s also when he started getting ISO of over .400. That doesn’t mean he didn’t use before for health reasons but he didn’t look or play like a super giant up to 1992.
I don’t think he was on a HOF track at that point. HE had the big rookie year, 2 not-as-good years, then a big year, then a bad year (.201 with 22 HR), then a big year…then came the 93-94 injury years…then miraculously at age 31, he starts hitting 1 HR every 8 AB’s for 5-6 years while remaining healthy
He was at 28 bWAR thru 1994, which was his age 30 season. Then had 33 WAR in the his age 31-36 seasons.
He was a star in the early 90’s..but, that was as much due to the A’s being awesome & the Bash Brothers hype than in reality…sort of like Stanton is today, ironically.
The other question about “when they started & how did it affect their level of play” is really not for this area. I don’t personally agree with that because of the lack of MLB rules in the 1990’s/early 2000’s., but, I won’t argue with someone who says otherwise.
While Big Mac’s low career hit total of 1,626 would’ve been an issue, his .263 career average was quite decent, his career OBP was an outstanding .394, and he played pretty good defense earlier in his career, even winning a Gold Glove.
He would’ve gotten in easily if he had those numbers without the PEDs.
I wouldn’t use a gold glove as evidence he was a good defender. Didn’t Palmeiro also win a GG at 1B one year when he barely played the field all season and was mostly a DH? I know, winning a GG doesn’t mean you AREN’T a good defender, but I never really considered him a particularly adept defender. I am pretty sure he had several years where he was in the 6-10 error range, which is a lot for 1B, and I don’t think he had particularly great range.
No, 6-10 errors over a full healthy season is pretty good for a starting 1B. In 1990, the year he won the Gold Glove, he only had 5 errors, a .997 FLD%, and Range Factors over 9. Those numbers are right in line with Don Mattingly, who won every other AL 1B Gold Glove between 1985 and 1992 and had another excellent defensive year when he lost out to McGwire.
That’s not what I am seeing, regarding error totals. I just took 2022 for an example, and the AVERAGE ENTIRE TEAM 1B errors is 8. That includes all starters AND BACKUPS playing a total of 162 games, which should pull the average down from where an actual good first baseman would be. FOURTEEN MLB ENTIRE TEAMS had 6 errors or less at 1B for the entire season. But I do have to add that a lot of McGwire’s high error totals were in the latter half of his career, and you did qualify your statement, saying he was a good fielder early in his career.
That being said, errors are just one part of the defensive metric of course. I have to admit I was surprised to see his range totals were much better than I had thought they would be.
McGwire would have made it easily if not for steroids. So would Sosa, so would Palmeiro.
And FWIW, McGwire played excellent defense until his heel trouble. Check out his stats from the early part of his career – those are fantastic for a 1B.
I have no confidence that a steroid-free Sammy Sosa has a 10 year MLB career, much less makes the Hall of Fame.
The OP topic was ignoring steroids, which is what I was responding to. I.e. same stats, no roids.
Whats the argument for non-steroid Sosa making the Hall? The only argument I’ll buy is that Harold Baines made it, so Sosa should too.
Not by the writers, no. He looks like he’s going to finish with 46 or so WAR at this point, if that. And I’m not confident that he has another 90 homers in him… maybe? But he’d limp to the line putting up 1-WAR seasons if so.
Does 500 HRs and 45 WAR get you in via the Vets? Maybe, eventually.
Whether the vets vote him in or not, they won’t be checking his WAR totals
Maybe. Keeping in mind though that we’re probably talking 15-20 years out. We may be talking about how much FLIP or YUP he has at that point.
Kirby Puckett and Jim Rice made it with that level of WAR by writers.
They did. But they were both big narrative candidates, and WAR wasn’t a thing when either were on the ballot – it hadn’t even been invented when Puckett was on in 2001, and Rice’s election was a cause celebre of the anti-advanced stats backlash that was going on in the late 2000s. (Remember all “the fear” articles?)
Baines was also a narrative candidate, though his narrative is mostly Tony La Russa railroading him through the committee. Plus a lot of hits.
Does Stanton have narrative at this point, or more to the point is his narrative a positive one? My guess is that he’d get negative narrative points at this point in his career, given the degree to which his fortunes have taken a downtown after the big contract and moving on to the Yankees.
I don’t see a narrative for him unless he’s a World Series hero and he gets 500 HR. He’d get in with 50 WAR if those things happened I think. the 500 HR seems to matter as a qualification, but not an automatic if the player has massive warts like PEDs
I did not know Ozuna played CF. I would love to see him out there now….
Would be shades of Vlad Sr. in right field in game 1 of the 2010 WS against the Giants
He was actually a decent-ish fielder early in his career and had an excellent throwing arm as a young player. A shoulder injury (I think with St. Louis but may have started before) eroded his arm strength to the point where he had the worst outfield arm in baseball, and by that point had slowed down enough that there wasn’t much point putting him anywhere other than DH.
He was pretty good there. He bumped Yelich to LF. Even Stanton wouldn’t have been terrible in CF very early.
hell no
I actually think it was inevitable that this would happen to Stanton. The same way that a starting pitcher can’t throw 103 mph 80 times a game without blowing out their body, you can’t swing as hard as Stanton does without injuring yourself. Watch slow motion video of Aaron Judge swinging vs. Stanton swinging – Judge has a smooth, balanced swing that doesn’t seem to put major strain on any particular part of his body; Stanton’s violent swing puts a lot of violence on his lower half and his core. Just seemed inevitable that his body was going to break down sooner or later with those swing mechanics.
This has always been my read as well – Stanton’s swing is incredibly stiff for someone who has had so much success. And he has a very violent deceleration phase (which is where you get hurt – for the very most part acceleration doesn’t cause stress, deceleration does). It’s not surprising that he’s had so many nagging long-term injuries, he causes huge stress on his joints and connective tissues every time he swings.
Wow, that is one low moon!
I loved the article even though it makes me sad. He was magnificent for a while and should have been for a few more years.
“It is a Stantonian home run!”
MikeGiancarlo is one of the few players whose name has been used as an adjective for homers. Dude hit dingers.If he stays clean, avoids any post-playing career controversy, and finishes with more than 500 home runs, I think he’ll make the Hall of Fame, one way or another. And I think that’s fine.
If he does, I feel near 100% certainty that will be via VC, not by regular HOF voting. I see a very slim chance at that even with 500+ HR, barring some huge late career resurgence
“It is a Stantonian home run!”
Has anyone other than John Sterling used that phrase before? Because he uses phrases like that for literally everyone (maybe not to describe dingers per se, but you get the idea)
Injuries and father time are no fun.
I wouldn’t vote for him even if he did get 500 HR. For position players, around 60 WAR is my minimum for consideration. He may not even end up with 50. As others have said, I am not even sure he has enough for another 89 homers in him.
It seems to me Stanton has become the player who tests people’s ability to distinguish between what looks good on the field and what actually helps a team win. And to that end, we discover that Fangraphs fans are not the norm.
For example, in 2022, before the ASG, he was the sixth most productive Yankee on the team. Sure, he hit 21 homers, but his wRC+ was 135, contributing negative defense and clogging the bases. And yet he made the ASG. (And, to his credit, he won the MVP.)
Another example is if you asked which player has been more productive to their team since the beginning of 2018, Stanton or Joey Wendle, I’m sure the answer would be Stanton. And yet, by fWAR, it is Wendle.
A 135 wRC+ isn’t that undeserving of being an All-Star, even with bad defense and baserunning.
At least 10 OFs from the AL who played in 2022, which includes about a half dozen who didn’t get to go, would disagree that he should have been a starter.
OK, not for a starter, fair enough, but those things happen when you let the fans pick the starters in the first place.
All star selection process is far from perfect, but too many people seem to believe that it should be based solely on the first half performance which does not make much sense to me.
Making the All-Star team is based on a variety of circumstances. Fan votes. Certain markets stuff the ballot boxes, even if they’re virtual today. The Commissioner’s Office has input. The managers have input to balane the rosters. Rules that a player has to appear from every team then limits other “deserving” players. The All-Star Game is actually about marketing, it’s also about fans and excitement. I guess those go together. Stanton is a big name and L.A. was his hometown. Fans often simply want to see the bigger names, but that doesn’t mean they don’t value the contributions of secondary players like Wendle. If we expand your scenario out to encompass Wendle’s career from 2016, then Stanton is probably has 50% higher WAR. Fans may understand more than some give them credit for. They’re simply voting for something else.
I’m probably get downvoted heavily for this again, but it really didn’t make sense for Cashman to bring him to pair with Judge. I guess his eyes got BIG looking at THOSE STATS.
He has not been as bad as other ‘failures’ in NY, but I’ll continue to wonder what might have been if he didn’t come to the Yankees, and Cashman spent that money on a left handed hitter or 3. If not Harper, someone else.
I don’t think you can blame Cashman, Stanton was coming off a massive MVP season and the Yankees basically got him for just the price of his contract. Based on the projections above no one could’ve really foreseen this much of a decline.
You can definitely fault Cashman for not heavily pursuing Harper and Machado, Harper in particular wanted to be a Yankee so much that he was willing to move to 1B to make it work. Still can’t believe the Yankees just turned their nose up at those guys.
The thing is that they would never have had (at the time) wanted both the mega deals for Stanton and Harper on the same payroll. They wanted to reset the tax. So it was an either/or situation with those two. No guarantee that they win the bidding war for Harper, so I can where they would take the sure thing (meaning they don’t have to bid against other teams– Stanton was really only waiving the NTC to the Yanks or Dodgers as I recall it) rather than potentially miss out on two sluggers.
The emergence of Judge is why Harper is not a Yankee. I’m quite sure they had Harper on their radar, but then they suddenly had a stud in RF making league minimum. Their goal was then to add another premium hitter while managing to the luxury tax, and they realized Stanton’s luxury tax hit was only going to be about $22MM with the money the Marlins sent, while Harper was going to be over $30MM, or at least that was the projected AAV then. I’m sure Harper’s AAV would be higher than it is now because the Yankees would have been bidding on him, and they likely would have done less years for a higher AAV.
In retrospect this turned out to be a mistake since Stanton has never been the player with the Yankees that he was with the Marlins. Second, they could have easily opened up RF for Harper. They mistakenly believed that Judge was not a CFer. It’s quite clear now that Judge should have been in CF since 2017, which also would have prevented the Hicks extension.
Can’t go back in time and change decisions. Regardless, I think the Yankees reasoning was fine. It simply didn’t turn out the way they hoped.
I remember at the time of the deal, I wasn’t as pumped about it as most. Yes, the trade package was low, but it was a contract that was likely going to be underwater quickly (I think they were banking on him maybe opting-out; he got injured and didn’t, obviously). But the fit with Judge was a little weird. Their best player was a RF, and then thy got another one, and were basically committing all of those dollars to a pure DH right from the get-go.
It also meant that they weren’t going to sign Harper. The writing was on the wall as soon as the deal was made. They were so focused on getting under the tax, but then Harper ended up signing a comparatively low AAV deal anyway (their AAVs are nearly identical).
I think if they did it again, knowing that their payroll would soon still be $300+ million with or without Stanton, and knowing that Harper would sign for what he did, they probably pass on Stanton every single time.
Can’t forgive him for winning MVP over Votto
This assumes the Yankees are going to continue playing a replacement level DH for the next three and three-quarter years (in lieu, say, of some fragile giant of a hitter named Judge), or that they can trade him for bags of balls and he keeps finding work somehow, or they cut him and the Rockies pick him up—and he wants to play for them, or whatever club desperate for a gate attraction but having no shot at the postseason calls.
Given how much worse Stanton is likely to be in a couple of years, and that he may well not be on the cusp of 500 at the end of the 2025 season, it seems like there are a lot of roads that don’t lead to 500 home runs, never mind Cooperstown.
Difficult, anyway, to see 75% of writers voting for Stanton for the Hall in 2034 even if he hits something like 510 HR to pair with his 45 WAR.
I’m still annoyed that he beat Votto out for MVP in 2017.
Ultimately, it likely comes down to how he gets to 500+ HRs. If he sticks around for five more years, hitting .180, K’ing 40% of the time, while limping in averaging 20 HRs a year, then I’ll say he won’t make it. Yet, I doubt he will get to 500 HRs if that’s what he’s hitting. He won’t get the opportunity. So he’ll need to be effective, even if way off his peak years.
We know there’s never been a player to hit 500 career HRs and not make the Hall of Fame unless they were attached to PEDs. In fact, I’ve heard those in both the general media and the stat community argue the reason Fred McGriff needed a second look was because all indications are he played clean. Well, why would throw that view out now with Giancarlo Stanton? If he hits his way to 500+ HRs cleanly, has an MVP, has a wRC+ in the 130s, aren’t we overthinking things? As I write this, his career wRC+ is 136. His 2024 wRC+ is 139. He’s only had a single below-average hitting season in his entire career.
I’m not here to predict Stanton makes the HOF, but there seems to be a movement among the stats crowd to declare no matter what he does moving forward, they won’t vote for him for the HOF. I’m prepared to wait, watch, and make my decision when his career is done. He’s done enough to continue to not make that decision in May 2024.