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Closing Time: Giancarlo Stanton and the Mendoza Line

Closing Time: Giancarlo Stanton and the Mendoza Line

For better or for worse, there’s an attraction to round numbers in sports.

When someone scores that 50th goal, they immediately fish out the puck, mark it up. Win a 300th game, they throw a party. Break into 1,000 yards rushing or receiving, it makes an visual impact, cracking into that fourth column. Wilt Chamberlain’s best scoring night (on court) was going to be magical either way, but there’s something cool about it landing exactly on 100 points.

It can work in negative ways, too. Consider the Mendoza Line, the scarlet letter of baseball batting averages.

Anyone can hit in the low .200s and look bad, but once you cross under .200, once you get south of Mendoza, that’s when the average really jumps up and down, starts attracting attention. Drop under .200, there’s nowhere to hide.

Giancarlo Stanton can relate. After Thursday’s 0-for-5 at Minnesota, he’s sitting at .197 for the year. While he did get unlucky on one sharply-hit ball, the other four outs came on strikeouts. (Meanwhile, Stanton’s teammates sprung for 10 runs on 18 hits. The four men ahead of Stanton in the order — the amazing Ichiro Suzuki, Martin Prado, Christian Yelich and Marcell Ozuna — are all hitting over .300).

Stanton defenders will point to his .247 BABIP, but come on, let’s be better than that. Stanton’s made a lot of his bad luck. His line-drive rate has collapsed to 13.8 percent (easily the worst of his career) and his hard-hit percentage has dropped by over nine percent. He’s also striking out an insane 35 percent of the time, easily the worst clip of his career.

Health could be playing into Stanton’s extended slump. He had a sore knee in Spring Training, and he recently missed about a week with a side injury.

And to be fair, most of the stats in his batted ball profile are more descriptive than predictive — they represent why he has the ugly average, but it doesn’t mean it can’t change at any moment. Surely no one wants to turn this around more than Stanton. Everything in this game is constantly fluid; players make adjustments, gain and lose confidence, etc. We’re very good at telling you where the puck has been, and why; it’s not nearly as easy to say where it’s going.

Nonetheless, I’m out on Stanton. I’m not a sympathizer; I wasn’t before the year and I’m certainly not now. The spectacle of Stanton tends to be overrated in the public eye; mammoth home runs usually move the needle. I think he's the most overrated name player in baseball.

Super Mario? (Topps)
Super Mario? (Topps)

Can we be confident about his health? Is Stanton done running (he doesn’t have a steal this year)? Did you notice how ordinary he tends to be in runs scored (the silent leak, so often underrated)? How many games do you feel confident projecting? He’s logged 123, 116, 145 and 74 games the last four seasons. Some injuries were clearly unavoidable bad luck, but I wouldn’t put everything into this file. I never expect a full season here.

Don’t tell me I’m killing your Stanton trade market, because plenty of pundits disagree with me on Stanton. You can find the right propaganda somewhere else, if that’s what you covet. I still think you can point to those 12 homers in 50 games and pique someone’s interest. Heck, it’s a logical play for a team in the second division (check this solid take from my buddy Steve Gardner); a fantasy team that needs to make a run from the bottom of the standings should consider boom-or-bust options like Stanton. He’s far less interesting to a team near the top, a team more concerned with floor than upside to this point.

The bat’s in your hands, Mario. Where do you stand on Stanton? Share your take in the comments.

-- Things are even more dire in Texas, where Prince Fielder is sitting on a .193/.265/.302 slash. He’s not hitting the ball with much authority, either, though one exception came Thursday. If you rank all the 1B-eligible players in banked 5x5 value, Fielder currently slots 63rd, just ahead of Ryan Howard and Yonder Alonso.

The roto questions are different with Fielder — he’s someone you could conceivably drop in a shallow or medium-depth mixer. The Rangers are a serious contender in 2016 and they have a very deep roster. First base and DH aren’t difficult positions to fill. And it’s not like Texas gets anything from Fielder’s defensive play or base-running; if he ain’t hitting, he ain’t helping.

Fielder turned 32 in May and he’s been losing bat speed for a while now. Many have suspected he could hit a nasty cliff in his early 30s, and that’s exactly what this looks like to me — a cliff season. I’d be in “whatever I can get mode” if I owned him, even if that merely meant something shiny off the waiver wire.

— To try to balance things out a bit, let’s mention two hitters that have recently climbed over the Mendoza. Good things appear to be ahead for Byron Buxton and Alex Rodriguez.

Buxton has a .333 average since his recall to the majors in late May. He hasn’t walked or homered in that stretch, and he only has one steal — though I could see an avalanche of steals coming at any time. But given how high his pedigree is, and how well he played during a Triple-A tuneup (six homers, four steals, 1.007 OPS), I love his plausible upside going forward. I also think the Twins will eventually promote Buxton in the lineup, probably sooner rather than later. They just want him to bank a little confidence first. You can add Buxton in 60 percent of Yahoo leagues.

Rodriguez isn’t walking, either, but he does have a .342 average this month, with seven RBIs. The injury-riddled Yankees need him in the lineup. He was just starting to find his pop before the hamstring injury in May; I still think he has some fantasy goodness left in him. A-Rod is unowned in about two-thirds of Yahoo leagues.