Giancarlo Stanton’s 250th homer put him in select, historic company

Giancarlo Stanton hit his 42nd homer of the season on Sunday, his ninth dinger in 12 August games, and the 21st homer he’s hit over his last 33 contests. It, like every homer Stanton hits the rest of 2017, set a new career-high for him, and also tied him with Gary Sheffield’s tremendous 1996 for the most dingers in a single season in Marlins history.

And none of that, amazingly, is the most impressive part of Stanton’s 42nd homer. That’s because it was also the 250th of his career, and while 250 isn’t a number you see celebrated all that often, the way Stanton got there is special, historically speaking.

According to Baseball Reference’s Play Index tool, Stanton is one of just 12 players in the history of baseball to have at least 250 career homers during their age-27 season. Seasonal age is determined by a player’s age as of June 30, so some of these players might have hit number 250 while they were actually 28, and some had hit 250 well before 27, but what matters is that Stanton is a member of this elite group.

Look at that list! Alex Rodriguez has way more homers before his age-27 season ended than Stanton will, but he also started his career two years earlier and is Alex Rodriguez. Jimmie Foxx began three years sooner than Stanton did. Foxx, Eddie Mathews, Ken Griffey Jr., Mickey Mantle, Mel Ott, Frank Robinson, and Hank Aaron are already all Hall of Famers. A-Rod and Albert Pujols will join them someday. Juan Gonzalez might have had a shot, but his career was over before he really got into his mid-30s, and the same goes for Andruw Jones, whose career after 27 was nothing compared to what came before then.

Seven Hall of Famers, and two more likely to join them. Gonzalez never had the glove and didn’t stick around long enough to compile the offensive numbers, but what he packed into his career is damn impressive. As for Jones, he honestly might be a Hall of Famer, anyway: There’s a pretty easy argument to make that he’s better than Jim Rice or at least as good as Andre Dawson, if you’re looking for recent comparables.

Of course, we’re talking about Stanton, so we won’t get too far into that. But these are the people Stanton now has as company, and it’s a ridiculous list. And somehow, this is what Stanton managed to achieve in spite of all of the injuries, in spite of averaging just 121 games per year from his first full season through 2016.

Making it to 250 is impressive enough: Just 227 of over 10,000 hitters in history have accomplished even that in their careers. Making it to 250 homers before a players’ age-28 season, though, is some real rarefied territory, and history suggests there are a whole lot more dingers to come from Stanton.