Giancarlo Stanton & Getting Nothing To Hit
In the couple weeks before Opening Day, hundreds of season prediction articles littered the baseball blogosphere. Naturally opinions varied, but almost nobody disagreed on one point: the Miami Marlins were expected to be terrible across the board and finish last in the NL East.
Well, more accurately, everything about the Marlins was expected to be putrid except Giancarlo Stanton.
And the Marlins have been awful. They currently own the worst winning percentage in baseball at .227. Breaking it down further, every facet of their performance has contributed to their 5-17 record. Their pitching staff has the fourth-worst ERA (4.48) in the league, they have compiled the lowest UZR (-14.0), and their offense has the worst wOBA (.257). In fact, they have the lowest wOBA in Major League Baseball by a staggering 30 points.
The poor performance has extended to Giancarlo Stanton, though. After essentially posting a six-win season in 2012 with 37 home runs and a .405 wOBA, he’s kicked off his 2013 campaign with no home runs, a .200/.324/.250 slash line, and a .267 wOBA. It hasn’t been pretty.
Of course, Stanton missed roughly a week in mid-April with a shoulder injury. While the injury could certainly be a significant contributor to his poor start, it goes beyond that. His poor performance appears to be an outgrowth of the talent around him, or the lack thereof. He’s arguably the only offensive threat in the lineup, and opposing pitchers are treating him as such. They’re not throwing him anything to hit. He’s seeing the lowest percentage of pitches in the strike zone of any hitter in baseball.
| Player | Zone% |
|---|---|
| Giancarlo Stanton | 34.3% |
| Pablo Sandoval | 34.6% |
| Carlos Gonzalez | 38.5% |
| Nate Schierholtz | 38.9% |
| Brandon Belt | 39.2% |
The lack of pitches in the strike zone has naturally led to an uptick in his walk rate. His 14.1% walk rate is highest of his career — so he’s still getting on base — but the power has been noticeably absent. Seeing an .050 ISO next to his name looks like a misprint. He has yet to hit a home run and only has three extra-base hits on the season.
His struggles may not simply be a case of being pitched around, though. It’s certainly part of it, but Stanton’s plate discipline numbers show something interesting:
| Year | O-Swing% | Z-Swing% |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 32.1% | 62.8% |
| 2011 | 33.6% | 68.5% |
| 2012 | 37.1% | 66.0% |
| 2013 | 39.5% | 55.2% |
He’s swinging at more pitches outside the zone, but his swing percentage at pitches in the strike zone has dropped precipitously. One would think that Stanton would jump on any pitch in the strike zone, considering he sees so few of them. The numbers don’t suggest that, though, and I don’t really know what to make of it.
For fantasy owners holding Giancarlo Stanton, it’s a difficult dilemma. He’s clearly getting nothing to hit due to the Marlins’ poor lineup, which could mean his numbers will suffer throughout the season. Do you think about selling Stanton and extracting whatever value you can get from an opposing owner? I can certainly understand the argument. I’m just not sure I could part with the talent.
Then again, it’s why I didn’t draft Stanton in any league this year. I swore off the Marlins. Protection within a lineup is generally overstated. With the Marlins and Giancarlo Stanton this year, though, I’m not sure it is. He’s the only dangerous bat in the lineup, and his numbers are suffering greatly because of that.
J.P. Breen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago. For analysis on the Brewers and fantasy baseball, you can follow him on Twitter (@JP_Breen).
Almost everybody thinks he gets traded in the off-season. Any chance they pull the trigger during the year? There’s no reason for the Marlins to hold onto him when he isn’t producing and selling tickets. I see Texas or maybe Boston come July.
The Marlins will ask for the moon in addition to a haul in prospects, so I think it’s a bad idea to bet that he will be traded mid-season. He might be, but the Marlins have no reason to trade him during the season for something that isn’t larger than what they will get in the off-season. During the off-season, teams without a place for him in season are more likely to get in on the bidding.
As of yesterday afternoon, they Marlins batters had -2.7 WAR through 21 games. If they stay on that pace through 162 games, their 8 non-pitcher positions will average -2.6 WAR on the season.
That may be closer to a AA lineup than a AAA one.
Regardless of the pitchers pitching around him, he can still bounce back if he starts recognizing the pitches in the zone and actually swinging at them. Maybe it’s just an adjustment period.
What about the idea that he might be trying to force the Marlins to trade him now by being as bad as possible ?
Oh please
Any thoughts on value in return for Stanton? Would Jacoby Ellsbury be the baseline talent level for Stanton? Who else would you sell Stanton for? Hitters only.
Thanks for the great read.
Through 4/26/13: .200/.324/.250 with 0 HR 10 BB 22 SO in 60 AB.
Through 4/26/12: .246/.292/.311 with 0 HR 4 BB 17 SO in 61 AB.
Maybe he’s just a slow starter?
For reasons that I don’t understand, Pitch F/X discipline stats and “standard” discipline stats vary wildly in small samples. His pitch F/X discipline stats reveal the same trend but in a much smaller magnitude; those stats are much closer to his career norms, which suggests that this is really just a sample size anomaly.
I honestly think the power numbers are just a slow start thing. Jay Bruce and Matt Kemp have one homer each.
The most frightening possibility for owners, however, is that Giancarlo is protesting to sink the fish early and also lower their return on him when they treat him like livestock this off season. I seriously doubt it, as mere vengeance won’t serve him much in the long term. Still, we know the guy is pissed.
Considering the rest of the names on that list make no sense at all from a pitching around standpoint I find it hard to worry about this too much. Sandoval gets a lot of balls out of the zone because he swings at everything. They aren’t pitching around CarGo to face Tulo and the other 2 names on that list don’t inspire fear in pitchers that requires pitching around them.
When Stanton heats up and stops swinging at junk they’ll start throwing him more strikes again. That lineup was dreadful in the 2nd half of last year and he hit 18 HR.
Do you think he’s getting so frustrated by the pitches he’s seeing that he’s pre-determining whether or not to swing based on it? Maybe he’s expecting to see balls out of the zone, and then leaving the bat on his shoulder when they do get over the plate. I’d be interested to see what his O-Swing% is when he’s behind in the count vs. ahead in the count.
“Considering the rest of the names on that list make no sense at all from a pitching around standpoint I find it hard to worry about this too much.”
Very much this, I think.
The fact that he isn’t swinging at pitches in the zone as much make no sense in this context, that combined with the other names on the list and the fact hat he was pretty terrible last April as well, lead me to believe he is simply playing bad, and it has little to do with not being pitched to.
How much would going back to being called Mike impact his Pitch F/X discipline stats?
This is so tired
His first 2 Aprils were effected by injury, leading to really slow starts. This year is different though. I watch every AB and it seems that he is completely caught off guard when they throw him strikes. I’ve seen more pitchers go after him with strikes than he probably thought would and he just doesnt swing at those good pitches to hit, thinking they wont be there. Then he falls behind and ends up swinging at a really bad pitch. He is really over thinking everything and thats why he is having such a difficult time. He has been looking a little better over the last week or so, so hopefully he is starting to break out of it.
after the HR he hit tonight…I think he’s gonna be ok…
Stanton really picked it back up quickly. His HR/FB rate is lower than expected, but if you plug in the 2.5 more home runs to his career HR/FB rate average his numbers are exactly where you would expect them to be at this point in the year. His percentage of pitches in the zone has also begun to regress to the mean. No cause for concern Stanton will put up the power numbers we all expect of him by the year’s end.