Miami Marlins: What is Wrong with Giancarlo Stanton?

Miami Marlins star outfielder Giancarlo Stanton is in the midst of a major slump. What has gone wrong for him?

Normally, when Giancarlo Stanton comes to the plate for the Miami Marlins, fans from all over the league are tuned in to see how far the super star can hit the ball. Rarely does something Stanton does at the plate catch people by surprise.

However, with Stanton struggling the past month, when he collected a hit on Sunday afternoon against the Washington Nationals, Marlins Twitter erupted like they usually do when he hits a moon shot.

Stanton’s hit off a Max Scherzer slider in the fifth inning ended an 0-for-19 slump he had been mired in. He had struck out in 16 of those plate appearances. 16!

In total, in his past 15 games, Stanton has gone 5-for-52 with 28 strikeouts. He has homered just once in that span and owns a -9 wRC+ in those 15 games. That is 109 percent worse than league average.

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Stanton, who is normally known for his hot starts, owned a .274/.391/.632 slash line, good for a 168 wRC+. He was walking in 15.7 percent and striking out in 27.8 percent of his at bats.

However, from May 7th on, Stanton owns a .083/.185/.167 slash line. His walk rate in that span is 10.9 percent, but his strikeout rate rising up to 47.3 percent.

The recent slump has dropped his season slash line to .211/.324/.469 with a 111 wRC+. That is compared to a career slash line of .267/.360/.543 with a 143 wRC+.

So what has been wrong with Stanton to cause this cold spell? Could Stanton be playing through an undisclosed injury?

That latter question is a legitimate one when considering this: On May 15th, Giancarlo Stanton and Marcell Ozuna collided while chasing down a flyball against the Washington Nationals. The collision left both Stanton and Ozuna on the ground for several minutes, leading to Ryan Zimmerman rounding the bases for an inside-the-park home run.

While Stanton did stay in that game and later hit a home run to ease the tension of some Marlins fans, there is still cause for concern. Since that collision game on May 15th, Stanton owns a .048/.167/.048 slash line with a -51 wRC+ in 25 plate appearances. He has struck out 17 times in that span, or 69 percent of his plate appearances.

Stanton did hit a home run a few innings after the collision, but has only one single, the one he collected Sunday afternoon against the Nationals. He has struck out at least twice in all 6 games since the collision. Stanton has walked twice in that span, with one of them being an intentional walk.

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In that six game span, Stanton has swung at 37.1 percent pitches out of the zone and owns a swinging rate of 59.3 percent. His zone contact rate is down to 59.3 percent.

Leading up to the collision, Stanton’s swinging rate on pitches outside of the zone was at 27 percent, a full 10 percent lower than it is the past week. His swinging rate was 15 percent and his zone contact rate was 82.1 percent.

Stanton’s swing and miss percentage was 14.6 percent leading up to May 15th. Since then it has been 17.8 percent.

Stanton is making less contact and due to that, his confidence has taken a hit. But could that be a result of lingering effects of the collision?

His slide started about a week before the collision between he and Ozuna, but could the injury have slowed down his regression to the mean?

That is something that is hard to figure out, unless Stanton tells the media himself about that. Stanton has been a known streaky hitter throughout his career, but it is hard to remember a time when he struggled as badly as he has been recently.

Interestingly, another reason for Stanton’s struggles could be the amount of sliders he’s faced this season, as Dayn Perry points out on CBS Sports:

"This season, Stanton has seen sliders more than a quarter of the time, which puts it not far behind the fastball in terms of frequency. Speaking of more sliders, it’s of course typically a weapon that pitchers use to attack same-handed hitters. On that front, Stanton this season has logged a fairly striking 84.1 percent of his plate appearances against right-handed pitchers. By comparison, all right-handed batters this season have ceded the platoon advantage in just 69.0 percent of plate appearances. This is the kind of thing you figure will balance out over time, and Stanton should see his numbers improve as he faces more lefties moving forward. Of course, the Marlins’ NL East opponents, against whom they’ll play roughly half their games this season, have among them just three lefty starters currently in their rotations. So maybe it won’t fully balance out for Stanton this year."

For his career, Stanton owns a 165 wRC+ against lefties, but a 136 wRC+ against righties. He’s elite against lefties, but still damn good against right-handed pitching.

However, in 2016 Stanton owns a 151 wRC+ against left-handed pitching a 103 wRC+ against right-handed pitching.

Last season Stanton owned a 139 wRC+ against right-handed pitching, so you can rule out a lingering issue from being hit on the face by Mike Fiers. He has worn a face guard in the ensuing plate appearances against right-handed pitching since.

An overload of facing right-handed pitching could mean the pitchers are following the same blueprint on how to face Stanton: more sliders.

If that’s the case, it is up to Stanton to figure out and make an adjustment.

Giancarlo Stanton is mired in one of the worst slumps of his major league career. But if history is an indication, he is bound to break out of this soon and punish every opponent that gets in his way.

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As long as there is not lingering injury we don’t know about, Stanton is a safe bet to get back to mashing home runs and sending pitchers back into their shells.