Hitting The Cutoff Man

The Florida Marlins' Mike Stanton did something very mean to a baseball on Monday night in Miami.

If you haven’t seen it, please go ahead and watch it here. I’ll wait.

All caught up? Good. That was the more massive of two massive home runs Stanton thumped against the Braves in that game, giving him 34 this season, in addition to the 22 he slammed in a partial 2010 season. Many of them have been of the outrageous, video game variety.

And that’s the thing. Mike Stanton doesn’t just hit home runs. Sure, he’s already collected more of them through his age 21 season than all but eight other men in history, and could pass Mickey Mantle, Al Kaline and Ken Griffey, Jr. in that category by the end of the season. But that really isn’t the point.

The point is that Stanton’s home runs are not just baseballs that fly over the fence. Already, at this early stage in his career, they are events unto themselves. They are their own category. Someone on Twitter suddenly blurting, “HOLY &^@$, MIKE STANTON,” is the Bat Signal for baseball fans -- drop everything and go find out what violent crime was just committed.

We need Mike Stanton and we need his gravity-defying, shot-from-a-cannon taters.

Stanton, is his younger days.

After the home run binge of the late 90s/early 00s and subsequent PED terror, it almost felt wrong to still dig the long ball. Like it was some sort of perversion you didn’t want to publicize. Any time you saw someone crush a ball out of the park, you almost had to splice your awe with an equal helping of suspicion, or at least emotional detachment. Don’t get too invested, lest you get burned again.

That has eased to some degree in recent years, as MLB mostly has turned the page. We’ve had Jim Thome, Prince Fielder and Adam Dunn (the good version). We’ve had Mark Reynolds, Ryan Howard and others who could send a baseball into orbit. But to varying degrees, probably unfairly, all of those guys are too close to another era.

Jose Bautista for all of his greatness, has seen first-hand how leery people still can get when someone’s power takes a hyperspace leap in a short time. Bautista is a great story. He’s a story I believe in. But he’s too complicated a story for many.

According to HitTrackerOnline.com, Bautista is the only player in baseball this season with more “no doubt” home runs than Stanton. These are defined as homers that “cleared the fence by at least 20 vertical feet and landed at least 50 feet past the fence.” Through Monday, Bautista has 17, Stanton has 15, and Justin Upton is next with 12.

The “no doubt” home runs are just half the equation with Stanton, though. The other half is his “no doubt” power hitter cred.

I suppose these days we should never assume anything, but screw it. I’m going to go ahead and assume that a 21-year-old who is 6 feet, 5 inches and 235 pounds of solid steel is a natural home run hitter. I’m going to assume he stepped out of the womb, grabbed a spare IV stand and swatted the doctor across the room. The guy was born to hit a baseball and born to hit it further than anyone else.

He walloped 89 home runs in 324 minor league games. At least one of them was a legendary moon shot. He’s now hit 56 home runs in his first 242 major league games. Of the 34 he has swatted this season, only 7 have failed to travel 400 feet (according to Hit Tracker), and I can only assume that’s because Stanton used one hand to swing, broke his bat or just decided not to show up the pitcher.

Stanton is power we all can believe in, put on posters, show to our kids. With him, it’s OK to let your guard down and just enjoy the show. The long balls are almost beyond belief, but in an eye-popping way, not a Mitchell Report way. I should stop here and say this isn’t meant to be a back-handed indictment of anyone else. I think most players today are clean. But nobody makes it easier than Stanton to leap unabashedly back into long ball reverence. And nobody makes it funner.

So go ahead, watch this again. Enjoy it. And get ready for many more.

-- Follow Hitting The Cutoff Man on Twitter at HitTheCutoff