Just How Far Can Giancarlo Stanton Take His Home Run Surge?

Giancarlo Stanton was put on this earth to hit home runs. He's been making that abundantly clear ever since he first set foot in the majors back in 2010.

But we've never seen Stanton hit home runs like he's been hitting them in 2015. And in light of where he is now, it's time for a serious talk about just how many dingers he could hit.

The Miami Marlins did not win Thursday night at Yankee Stadium, losing 9-4 to the New York Yankees. But there was a point in the sixth inning when things were looking up, when Stanton did this to a CC Sabathia pitch to give the Marlins a 3-1 lead:

Ho hum, right? As ESPN Stats & Info noted, Stanton has been doing this a lot lately:

That's a lot of dingers. And when you add 'em up, you get an intriguing number.

Stanton's 25 home runs put him just 12 shy of his career high of 37, and we're only midway through June. Health permitting, it's basically a given the 25-year-old slugger will set a new career high. The real question is by how much.

It could be by a lot. Because according to ESPN.com, Stanton is on pace to hit 60 home runs.

That, as you well know, is a special number. Only eight players in history have climbed that high in a season, and only Roger Maris and Babe Ruth did it outside the steroid era. It's not a number to be tossed around lightly.

For that matter, it would be best if nobody brought this to Stanton's attention. He's made it clear he cares not for personal records.

"No numbers—just play the whole year and help the team," he told Joe Frisaro of MLB.com back in April about his goals for the season. "I don't do numbers."

If Stanton is a man of his word, then we can assume he's not trying to chase history. 

But it's not happening by accident. Because while Stanton has always been built to hit home runs, this year he's become a machine perfectly designed to hit home runs.

Alan Diaz/Associated Press

If a hitter is going to challenge home run history, the first thing he needs is an awful lot of power. With Stanton, that's a box we can check with a Google image search. As far as big dudes go, he's a big dude.

After that, a hitter needs the right kind of batted-ball profile, which brings us to the first thing that's different about Stanton this year: His batted-ball profile is perfect for home runs.

According to FanGraphs, Stanton is keeping the ball off the ground and getting the ball up into the air at career-best rates. He's taken an especially big leap in the latter department, as his fly-ball rate of 47.0 percent is miles better than his previous career high of 41.7 percent in 2012.

Year	GB%	FB%	Hard%
2010	43.0	40.5	42.2
2011	45.2	38.5	39.6
2012	36.2	41.7	44.3
2013	43.4	38.5	39.2
2014	41.2	39.1	40.4
2015	33.1	47.0	50.6

This is important. More fly balls means more chances to hit the ball over the fence, and it only takes 80 balls in play for a fly-ball rate to stabilize. Not including Thursday night's action, Stanton has already hit 78 fly balls alone. Thus, there's a good chance his current fly-ball rate is there to stay.

Next, it's obviously important for a hitter to make consistent hard contact. And as you might have heard, this is something Stanton's been really, really good at.

Per FanGraphs, a career-high 50.6 percent of Stanton's batted balls are classifying as "hard hit." That won't come as a surprise to anyone who's heard about his exploits in the exit velocity department. For those who haven't, Baseball Savant says balls leave Stanton's bat at an average of 97.97 miles per hour. That's four miles per hour faster than the next guy on the list (Joc Pederson).

Courtesy of Baseball Savant's Daren Willman, there's also this:

With such a knack for generating batted-ball velocity, Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs sees Stanton as the antithesis to baseball's hardest-throwing pitcher:

"

There’s no such thing as a perfect equivalent for Aroldis Chapman. His control of the velocity leaderboard is too dominant, because he’s in direct control of the velocity results. He’s simply blessed more than other pitchers are blessed, and that’s his physical advantage. No hitter could be that dominant when it comes to batted balls, but Stanton is the best approximation we have. 

"

Knowing that Stanton is both hitting the ball in the air and also hitting the ball very hard, you won't be surprised to hear he's also hitting the ball very far. According to Baseball Heat Maps, he's smacking the ball an average of 322.13 feet. That's a career high, and the best in MLB by several feet.

To boot, many of Stanton's long drives are going to the right parts of the yard. Only 34.6 percent of his fly balls are going up the middle, the second-lowest rate of his career. The overwhelming majority of Stanton's fly balls are going to left and center, where the fences are closest.

So you know the 25 home runs Stanton already has and the 60 he's on pace for? Rather than by luck, those figures exist by design. He's doing everything in his power (pun absolutely intended) to hit home runs at a historic rate.

Now, this isn't a promise Stanton will make it to 60 homers. There are things that could stop him.

Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

One is health. Stanton has played 150 games in a season just once in his career, and the leg injuries that kept him short of 130 games in both 2012 and 2013 aren't that far in the rearview mirror.

Another is Stanton's home ballpark. ESPN.com's park factors rank Marlins Park as the second-worst park for home runs, and Stanton doesn't hit dingers there like he does on the road. Nearly 40 percent of his road fly balls clear the fence. Only 25 percent of his home fly balls do so.

Lastly, there's the reality that pitchers aren't likely to cooperate with Stanton's home run chase.

One way we'll know they're not is if he stops seeing 43.1 percent of his pitches in the strike zone, which is a bit higher than his career rate of 40.3 percent. Pitchers could also start pounding Stanton away more, as Brooks Baseball shows they've pitched him in and out despite the fact his home run chart clearly shows how much safer it is outside than inside.

System	ROS Homers
ZiPS	25
Steamer	25
Depth Charts	25

Considering all of this, Stanton actually reaching 60 home runs is less than a sure thing. The projection systems see him finishing in the neighborhood of 50. Certainly not as impressive as 60, to be sure, but still really good.

The fact that we can keep a straight face while talking about Stanton making a run at 60 homers, however, is a testament to the work he's been doing. He's taken his natural deep-ball ability and augmented it with a perfect blend of technical efficiency. The results speak for themselves.

And before we go, we'll say this: If Stanton actually gets to 60 home runs, it will deserve to go into the books as the greatest home run-hitting season ever recorded.

He'll have done it without the benefits of the steroid era that Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa enjoyed. He'll have done it without the benefits of a 16-team league with no interleague play and only white players that Babe Ruth enjoyed in 1927. And he'll have done it without the benefits of a short right field porch and a pitching-thin expansion league that Roger Maris enjoyed in 1961.

Rather, Stanton will have reached 60 homers in a 30-team league while playing at a huge home ballpark and in a league where pitchers have been dominating the run-scoring environment. By all rights, he's not in a position to come anywhere close to 60 homers.

And yet, he's on his way there. If you needed another excuse to give Stanton your attention, there it is.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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