ALDS Series GDT: Boston Red Sox vs New York Yankees

[Orgfiller]

In Edwin's prime he was striking out about 15% of the time. He was making hard contact, drawing walks, and not striking out. For a 40 HR slugger, that's damn good. Stanton is striking out 30% of the time. He just had a .333 BABIP season and still saw a huge drop in performance. They have some similarities, but the K's and contact rates are huge. Stanton strikes out double the amount Edwin did in his prime. Edwin's offensive profile seemed much more likely to age gracefully than Stanton's does.

 

Stanton looks like an old man skills player. At age 29, I don't think he has many more great years in him.

 

Stanton's contact rates this season weren't substantially different from his career averages where he's been an elite player. He absolutely demolishes the ball, a .333 BABIP is high for him but given his quality of contact it's not that ridiculous. I see this as more of a down year than the beginning of a hard decline, he's still an excellent hitter and a superb athlete who won't hurt you with baserunning or on defense, an elevated K rate is not that big of a concern for a player of his caliber who has always performed in spite of it.

[SaskJaysFan_2]

You know, it's interesting I was in NYC a few weeks ago when the Jays were in town. My wife left for some shopping, so there I was alone with my Jays gear on. And of course the Jays smash the s*** out of the Yankees. So on the subway home, a group of drunken fans notice my jersey and start talking to me. Anyway, I ended up having a pretty fun, interesting and civil group of Yankee fans for 20 minutes. And no one razzed me for wearing my Donaldson jersey, either. It was pretty neat. I thought they'd be all rude and obnoxious, having hated them as a collective for so long. The main topic, Happ of course.