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In 2016, baseball fans can still think about Giancarlo Stanton the way basketball fans thought about Stephen Curry circa 2012: With talent like that, just imagine what he might do with good health.

Basketball fans have certainly gotten their answer. But as for us baseball folk, Stanton’s if-healthy potential is still a topic for the imagination.

The injury bug has definitely had it out for the Miami Marlins‘ slugging right fielder. Due to knee surgery in 2012, a hamstring strain in 2013, a wayward fastball to his face in 2014 and a broken hand in 2015, Stanton has averaged only 115 games over the last four years. And with Opening Day of a new season just weeks away, a bad right knee has already slowed the 26-year-old.

However, this latest injury doesn’t sound serious. After returning to spring training action Sunday following a week off, Stanton gave reporters a thumbs-up.

“I felt relatively good,” Stanton said, per ESPN.com. “I was just getting in the swing of things again. Any time you can get in there and work on that is good.”

If Stanton is ready by Opening Day, he’ll enter 2016 with a list of things he doesn’t need to prove. We know he has a good eye. We know he’s a terrific defender. And in the past couple of seasons, he’s been a better baserunner than you’d expect from a 6’6″, 240-pounder who’s built like Lord Humungus.

So, let’s skip past those questions to the one we really want to see Stanton answer in a full season: How many dingers can he hit?

It’s all about Stanton’s power, man. Not that any of us really need to be reminded of that, but we’ll gawk like slack-jawed yokels at this video illustration anyway:

It didn’t even look like Stanton got all of that breaking ball, and he still sent it 484 feet. That’s what you can do when you have not only a body like his but the ability to make the most of it.

“He gets all of his body into his swing,” Hall of Fame slugger Andre Dawson told Joe Frisaro of MLB.com last season. “His hands follow his feet. He’s getting that out to the point where he makes the contact at the precise moment, which helps generate his overall strength.”

Even Stanton’s bad luck with the injury bug has only tamped down his power so much. He’s topped out at 37 home runs in two of the last four seasons, leading the National League in dingers on his way to finishing second in the MVP balloting in 2014. And among all qualified hitters, his .284 ISO (isolated power) since 2012 is the best.

With power like that, Stanton’s single-season home run potential far exceeds his high of 37. To that end, his 2012 and 2015 seasons offer some tantalizing clues. 

Stanton’s power was at its best in those seasons and could have led to some extraordinary numbers if he’d stayed healthy. With 37 homers in 123 games in 2012, Baseball-Reference.com calculated he might have hit 49 if he played in 162 games. With 27 homers in 74 games in 2015, he might have reached 60.

The latter is obviously an attention-grabber. Nobody has hit 60 homers in a season since Barry Bonds in 2001, and only two players have reached 60 outside of baseball’s steroid era. ‘Tis a sacred number.

But in a conversation about Stanton’s power potential, it’s a number that can’t be brushed off as an all-too-certain impossibility. Especially not after last year. The .341 ISO that Stanton posted in 2015 was easily a career best, and it didn’t happen by accident.

A career-low 34.8 percent of his batted balls were on the ground, which resulted in more power-friendly line drives and fly balls. He also pulled the ball at a career-high rate of 47.1 percent, allowing him to tap into power to left field that’s always been huge.

Also, Stanton just plain hit the ball harder than anyone else. According to Baseball Savant, he won MLB’s batted-ball velocity derby by a healthy margin:

1. Giancarlo Stanton: 97.7 mph
2. Miguel Sano: 94.5 mph

What’s most impressive is how Stanton did all this in the wake of that beanball to the face that brought an early end to his 2014 season. There was a lot of preseason talk about whether that would make him gun-shy against inside pitches, and pitchers played into that by pitching him inside more than ever.

But rather than let himself be intimidated, Chris Towers of CBSSports.com noticed early in 2015 that Stanton actually moved his stance in the box a bit closer to home plate. He then crushed inside pitches more than ever, and he benefited from the extra plate coverage by also crushing outside pitches more than ever.

As weird as it feels to say this about a guy who was the runner-up for the NL MVP in 2014, Stanton’s 2015 season looks like the moment when things clicked. Though his batting average and on-base percentage both regressed, his power production finally living up to his power potential made up for it. 

There’s also no ignoring that it happened in only Stanton’s age-25 season. If what we saw was him entering his prime, the possibilities for what he could do in the middle of his prime widen one’s eyes.

Which leads us to the question that inevitably comes up at times like this: “OK, where’s the catch?”

In the past, one of the big ones would have been Stanton’s home ballpark. He has to play half his games at Marlins Park, an aquatically hued bungalow that’s big enough to double as a parking lot for jumbo jets.

But not for long. The Marlins have taken a cue from the San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners and New York Mets, and they are altering their fences to be less cruel to hitters. It’s a good guess that this will lead to an uptick in power at Miami’s home park.

With that problem possibly taken care of, the potential for what Stanton might do in his prime comes down to his own shortcomings. Apart from health, the big one is his tendency to strike out. 

In six seasons, Stanton has yet to post a strikeout rate under 26.6 percent, keeping him comfortably above the league average. And in 2015, not even his improved plate coverage could help him. He struck out in 29.9 percent of his plate appearances.

There may be a way for new Marlins hitting coach Barry Bonds—a decent slugger in his own right back in the day—to fix this, but he has his work cut out for him. Stanton’s 6’6″ frame is a built-in disadvantage due to the large strike zone it creates, and the nature of his swing also presents some complications.

Ryan Parker of Baseball Prospectus broke down how it’s a special sort of swing, in that Stanton’s athleticism allows him to make up for mechanical oddities that you don’t see in the swings of truly great hitters. But while one imagines that adjusting his mechanics could help him cut down on his strikeouts, the obvious fear is that he could pay for it with a loss of power.

As long as strikeouts remain a fact of life, Stanton is unlikely to be the most consistent hitter. Hitters who strike out a lot rarely occupy the great-hitter demographic reserved for those with batting averages over .300 and OBPs over .400. And though Stanton came close to those marks in 2014, his career .270 average and .362 OBP are truer reflections of his abilities as a pure hitter.

Stanton’s strikeout habit is also likely to limit his power, particularly in light of how it’s tied to his size. He’s not the first big slugger to suffer from a large zone and a less-than-efficient swing, and the ones who came before him have struggled to occupy the upper tiers of the home run record books. The single-season record for a 6’6″ or taller hitter is 48 homers, making that magic number of 60 homers out to be a reach after all.

But then, Stanton doesn’t need to hit 60 home runs to reach new personal heights in a full season.

If he can stay healthy and pick up where he left off in 2015, he could easily slug 50 home runs with an OBP in the mid-.300s. Add in good work on the basepaths and excellent work in the field, and you’re left imagining a one-of-a-kind slugger.

All he needs is a bit of good luck with injuries. And if nothing else, we can say he’s due for some.

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

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The Miami Marlins will be without one of their top relievers for the entire 2016 season, as Carter Capps is set to undergo Tommy John surgery.

Continue for updates.

Timetable for Capps’ Recovery Revealed

Tuesday, March 8

The team announced that the 25-year-old righty’s procedure will be carried out by renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews.

Per MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro, the surgery will repair a torn UCL. Frisaro also provided a potential timeline for Capps’ return:

After mixed results in two seasons with the Seattle Mariners, Capps was traded to the Marlins prior to the 2014 season. He truly broke out in 2015, though, with a 1.16 ERA, 0.81 WHIP and 58 strikeouts in 31 innings.

Capps’ unique delivery made life miserable for hitters last season, and it created the illusion that nobody in MLB threw harder, according to MLB.com’s Daren Willman:

As pointed out by MLB.com’s Mike Petriello, the manner in which Capps bore down on hitters led to a remarkable amount of swinging strikes:

Capps was penciled in to be the primary setup man for closer A.J. Ramos in 2016, but the likes of Mike Dunn, Bryan Morris and Brad Hand now figure to vie for that role.

None of them bring the same type of electricity to the table that Capps does, which could make the late innings a challenge for Miami.

The Marlins already faced an uphill climb when it came to competing with the Washington Nationals and reigning National League champion New York Mets in the NL East, but Capps’ absence will put even more pressure on the Giancarlo Stanton-led offense to produce massive numbers in 2016.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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Put Scott Boras, Jeffrey Loria and David Samson in a room, and a reality television producer would salivate at the possibilities. It’s a group with so much potential for dysfunction that Bravo might consider ditching The Real Housewives series just to acquire the rights.

The outspoken, bullish agent (Boras), the wacky owner (Loria) and president (Samson) have the kind of volatile personalities that could cause a kerfuffle in 2016.

The parties are making nice right now, with the Associated Press (h/t Fox Sports) indicating communication has gone smoothly between the Marlins and Boras, who represents three of Miami’s five projected starting pitchers.

Jose Fernandez, though, could easily ripple the waters.

The Miami right-hander, a Boras client, had Tommy John surgery on May 16, 2014. In 11 starts last season, the 23-year-old pitched 64.2 innings and went 6-1 with a 2.92 ERA. He is Miami’s most promising starter, and, as of now, the Marlins are reportedly in agreement with Boras on how to use Fernandez in 2016, according to MLB.com’s Joe Frisaro.

Does this sound like the sequel to a classic Boras film?

Mets right-hander Matt Harvey, also a Boras client, missed all of the 2014 season after having Tommy John surgery. Then in 2015, the Mets were contenders. Agendas diverged.

While the Mets wanted Harvey to help their push to October, Boras was more focused on preserving Harvey’s value for 2019, when he becomes a free agent.

The Mets wanted to modify the previously established 180 innings limit for Harvey. Boras wanted Harvey to be shut down once he hit the mark. So Boras did Boras-y things like posture publicly, causing a controversy at the worst possible time.

At one point, Harvey was even noncommittal about whether he would pitch in the playoffs. Eventually, he pitched in October.

For the situation to re-air in Miami, the Marlins have to compete—a far-fetched idea in a division that includes the Mets and Nationals. If in fact Miami doesn‘t contend for the playoffs, there’s no reason to eclipse Fernandez’s innings limit.

But expect the Marlins to improve on last season’s 71-91 record. And just maybe, new manager Don Mattingly will be the voice needed to jump-start this club. Heck, last season we saw the Cubs‘ Joe Maddon and the Astros‘ A.J. Hinch guide their young teams to the playoffs a year earlier than expected.

If they are contenders, how could the Marlins brass, which has warred with its fans over the years, deny them October baseball? Shutting down Fernandez would concede any race.

Oh, and blowing Fernandez’s innings limit would be so entertaining.

Boras isn‘t the only loudmouth of the group. Samson is also one to—let’s put it nicely—overshare. In November, Samson told the Miami Herald‘s Barry Jackson that Fernandez rejected a multiyear contract offer in the months before he returned from his surgery.

Samson felt the need to break the privacy of those negotiations to gain public favor. The lava is already boiling. If Boras tries to tell the Marlins how to use Fernandez, we could see an irruption.

Neither Loria nor Samson would welcome Boras‘ opinion on how to run their organization.

Like Harvey, Fernandez is scheduled to become a free agent in 2019. Only Boras has more to protect in the case of Fernandez. When he’s a free agent, he’ll command a bigger contract than Harvey, who will have hit 30 by then.

The irony: The better Fernandez plays, the more likely the parties are to get into a hissy fit.

An all-star-type year from Fernandez could vault the Marlins into playoff contention. If he plays poorly, Miami has no chance of going to the postseason.

This is a prognostication, which is what we do this time of year. But if the Marlins do exceed expectations, a battle over Fernandez can make the Harvey situation look like an undercard.

If it does go down, grab your popcorn, sit back and tune in. It would be wildly entertaining.

Seth Gruen covers baseball for Bleacher Report as a national baseball columnist. Follow him on Twitter @SethGruen.

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The Miami Marlins have a “tentative game plan” to put ace starting pitcher Jose Fernandez on an innings limit for the upcoming season, which the team “will review with Jose in spring training,” according to president of baseball operations Michael Hill, per Jon Morosi of Fox Sports.  

“There’s going to be a range (of innings) discussed with the team and the doctors involved,” Fernandez’s agent, Scott Boras, told Morosi.

The 2016 season will be Fernandez’s first full campaign since undergoing Tommy John surgery in May 2014.

According to Morosi, “The Marlins, according to one source, will be reluctant to place a hard cap on Fernandez before the season, preferring to agree on a range that could be scaled based on the number of stressful innings encountered during the year.”

Based on Matt Harvey’s experience with the New York Mets in 2015, his first full season back from the same surgery, Morosi speculated Fernandez could be looking at about 180 innings of work.

Fernandez, 23, appeared in just 11 games in 2015, finishing 6-1 with a 2.92 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and 79 strikeouts in just 64.2 innings pitched. In his three seasons in the big leagues—two of which have been hampered by injury—Fernandez has established himself as one of the top young pitchers in baseball. 

But he also missed an additional month last season after suffering a right biceps strain, so it’s hard to blame the Marlins for wanting to be cautious with their young ace.

On the other hand, the Marlins signed Wei-Yin Chen this offseason to bolster the top of the rotation—an indication the organization believes it can compete for an NL East title—so finding the right balance between caution and ambition will be key for the Marlins and Fernandez as they monitor his innings count.

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.

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Jose Fernandez and the Miami Marlins appear to be destined for a divorce by the time the hard-hurling right-hander hits free agency in 2018.

Continue for updates.

Fernandez Expected to Command $30 Million Per Year

Sunday, Feb. 14

The Marlins believe Fernandez and agent Scott Boras will seek a deal worth $30 million per year when the ace becomes a free agent in 2018, according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald.

The team has “no plans to meet” the hefty figure, per Jackson.

Fernandez has twice turned down extension offers since undergoing Tommy John surgery in May 2014. The first was a six-year, $40 million offer, according to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman, then working for CBS Sports.

Adam Klug of CBS Sports Radio thought there was no chance that Hernandez and Boras would accept such an offer:

Fernandez turned down another a multiyear offer for an undisclosed amount in November, less than four months removed from his return, according to Jackson.

The Marlins then shopped Fernandez at the winter meetings in December, but their asking price was reportedly too high, per Joe Frisaro of MLB.com (via Chris Cwik of Yahoo Sports). 

Less than a week later, Fernandez declined to comment when asked if he thought the Marlins could compete in 2016 and if he wanted to remain in Miami. 

Fernandez is reportedly upset with the slew of trades the team made in the summer—notably dealing starting pitchers Dan Haren and Mat Latos—as well as the firing of pitching coach Chuck Hernandez, per Jackson, who elaborated on the situation:

If the Marlins are winning a lot and in serious contention the next two seasons, they could hold onto him through at least the midpoint of 2018. Otherwise, they figure to trade him within a year of free agency, perhaps after 2016 if this upcoming season is an unmitigated disaster. At $2.8 million, he remains a bargain for 2016.

Fernandez still has three full seasons of club control remaining. But $30 million per year is a steep price for any player—particularly for a club with the third-lowest payroll in MLB.

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The Miami Marlins and second baseman Dee Gordon agreed to a five-year, $50 million deal on Jan. 13, according to Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal. 

The Marlins announced the deal on Monday.

Gordon garnered his second All-Star Game appearance in his first year with the Marlins in 2015, leading MLB with 205 hits.

Per Rosenthal, there is an option for a sixth year, which could make the contract worth $64 million.

While some contracts break the bank, CBS Sports’ Chris Towers doesn’t feel that way about this deal:

Towers is alluding to Miami’s acquisitions of pitcher Wei-Yin Chen and infielder Chris Johnson on Tuesday, making this a busy week for the Marlins.

Gordon is one of the best leadoff hitters in the majors, blending blazing speed with a fantastic ability to put the ball in play. He led MLB with 58 stolen bases, and only Miguel Cabrera bested his .333 batting average.

Add that with a .359 on-base percentage, a career high, and Gordon is the kind of player any team dreams of having atop its lineup. 

The 27-year-old also exhibited a reliable glove, committing just six errors on 733 chances last season. He was a vital part of a Marlins defense that ranked third-best in the majors. 

Keeping Gordon ensures that his presence leading off will set the table for the slugging Giancarlo Stanton, who has had difficulties staying healthy over the past two years. Gordon could do everything but get himself across home plate. Without Stanton in the lineup, the Marlins struggled to score, ranking 29th in the league with 613 runs.

If Stanton manages to stay in the lineup and Gordon can recreate his 2015 season, the Marlins could be scoring a lot more in 2016.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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Say what you want about the Miami Marlins—and we’re about to say a lot of unkind things—but they have made a fine art out of not having a plan.

The latest example came Tuesday, with the news Miami had signed left-hander Wei-Yin Chen to a reported five-year, $80 million deal, per Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal. The deal includes a sixth-year vesting player option, which would make the pact worth $96 million, and Chen can opt out after the second season, per ESPN’s Buster Olney.

Taken in isolation, it’s not a terrible move. Chen was arguably the best starting pitcher left on the market and is coming off a solid season that saw him post a 3.34 ERA in 191.1 innings for the Baltimore Orioles. And the 30-year-old Scott Boras client was seeking a nine-figure contract, per MASN’s Roch Kubatko, so you could even classify this as a minor bargain.

With the Marlins, though, nothing can be taken in isolation. They are baseball’s most directionless franchise, and the Chen signing is further proof.

Consider this: For most of the offseason, we’ve heard rumors that the Marlins might trade young assets like outfielder Marcell Ozuna and budding ace Jose Fernandez, who reportedly clashed with management. Did that mean Miami was angling toward a pseudo-rebuild? 

Apparently not. Rebuilding teams don’t commit to $80 million veterans. But does Chen really push the Marlins, who floundered to a 71-91 finish last year, into the playoff conversation? 

There is talent all over the roster. Fernandez, when healthy, is one of the most exciting arms in the game. Ozuna, Christian Yelich and Giancarlo Stanton, the $325 million man, form an enviable young outfield. Second baseman Dee Gordon led the league in hits and stolen bases in his first season in Miami.

Scanning the depth chart, there are reasons for optimism and scenarios wherein the Fish could contend.

Then you remember that these are the Marlins, who always seem to find a way to screw things up. 

They hired Don Mattingly to be their manager then immediately overshadowed that by bringing in Barry Bonds and his performance-enhancing drug baggage as a hitting coach.

That follows on the heels of last season’s managerial debacle, when Miami fired skipper Mike Redmond and installed general manager Dan Jennings in the dugout. 

That led to, essentially, an open mutiny. Or, at least, open mockery of the team’s cartoonish dysfunction.

“We’d have circus music blaring after we won a game,” an unnamed player told Andy Slater, a talk show host for Miami’s flagship radio station, WINZ. Utility player “Jeff Baker got released because one day he brought in about 50 red clown noses to go with the music and passed them out.”

The Mattingly hire could smooth some of that over, though the Bonds sideshow should keep the Ringling Bros. vibe going.

We could go further back and detail the exploits of polarizing owner Jeffrey Loria, who has more than once built an expensive cast of veterans only to capriciously tear it down, alienating fans and players alike. But you get the picture.

Now, into all this steps Chen, a perfectly reasonable addition for a team with a clear need. The Marlins, though, don’t have a clear need, because it’s so maddeningly unclear what they’re trying to be. 

If you’re a Fish fan searching for a less dreary note, USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale sounded one after the Chen deal:

So there’s your glass-half-full take. And, yes, maybe the Marlins will bounce back. This club has won two World Series, after all, amidst all the head-scratching turmoil.

In fact, roaring back to contention might be the most Marlins thing the team could do, provided it blew up the roster shortly thereafter. 

Here’s another delicious twist: Boras, who represents Chen, also represents Fernandez and Ozuna. As trade talk has swirled around those two, Boras and Loria have locked horns. 

“It would be quite a turn of events, then,” Fox Sports’ Rosenthal wrote before the deal was consummated, “if Loria and Boras ended up sharing the dais at a news conference introducing [Chen] as the newest member of the Fish.”

At a certain point, you’ve got to believe Loria relishes his role as the game’s resident crazy boss, Michael Scott and Mr. Burns all rolled into one.

As a Marlins fan, meanwhile, it’s probably best to throw up your hands and take the ride. Heck, maybe they’ll sign another high-priced free-agent. Yoenis Cespedes, anyone?

In the meantime, welcome to Miami, Wei-Yin Chen. Hope you like clown noses.

All statistics courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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Imagine, if you will, the most feared slugger in recent baseball history taking pointers from the most accomplished slugger in all of baseball history.

Well, you can turn off your imagination now. That’s something that’s about to happen in Miami in real life, and it could mean great things for one Giancarlo Stanton.

Last Friday, the Marlins named all-time home run leader Barry Bonds their new hitting coach. It’s the former Pittsburgh Pirate and San Francisco Giant’s first coaching gig, and it looks like a tough one. He’s now in charge of a young lineup that ranked 14th in the National League in runs in 2015.

But, hey, at least said offense has Stanton, otherwise known as “the most feared slugger in recent baseball history” that we were talking about earlier.

Though Bonds said, via Joe Frisaro of MLB.com, that he’s looking forward to getting “in the trenches” with all of Miami’s hitters, his partnership with Miami’s star right fielder is the one that has everyone excited. That includes Stanton himself, who called Bonds a “genius” in an interview with TMZ Sports.

That about says it. We can debate how many of Bonds’ 762 career home runs came from performance-enhancing drugs, but it’s impossible to be unimpressed by his career .444 OBP or career 1.051 OPS. And even with the PED cloud, the mind fairly boggles at what Bonds did between 2001 and 2004. 

Of course, being great at hitting and being great at coaching hitting are not the same thing. In fact, Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight.com found there’s no reason to believe that Bonds’ track record will make him an especially great hitting coach. This according to the math.

However, Bonds isn’t entirely green as a hitting coach. He worked one-on-one with Alex Rodriguez and Dexter Fowler last winter, and they both had strong seasons in 2015. Bonds also drew rave reviews from Giants players when he was a special instructor at their spring training in 2014. Brandon Crawford was especially complimentary, and he’s turned into a dangerous hitter in two seasons since.

So, no. The Marlins aren’t going out on a limb with their hiring of Bonds. He should be able to make a difference.

If he plays his cards right, that could include nudging Stanton into the next level of excellence.

If Bonds is going to help Stanton, the first thing he needs to understand is where his help isn’t needed. 

Stanton definitely has power figured out. He’s a 6’6″ and 240-pound monster of a man, and he’s hit like one his entire career. Since 2010, he leads the National League in home runs despite significant time missed with injuries. He also leads his fellow NL’ers in isolated power and overall hard-hit rate.

Like any good slugger should, Stanton also takes his walks. He’s consistently posted above-average walk rates, and he’s been able to keep his chase rates reasonably low in each of the past three seasons.

But by now, everyone knows of Stanton’s fundamental flaw. He strikes out a ton, consistently posting strikeout rates around 30 percent. He owns a .270 career average and a .362 career OBP even despite that, but there’s no question that his whiff habit is the big thing in his way of being a truly great hitter. He’s pretty awesome, sure, but he’d be even awesomer if he put more balls in play.

Fortunately for him, this is an area where Bonds knows a thing or two.

Though Bonds is best known for his history-making power and laser-precise batting eye, he was also quite good at making contact. He wasn’t so much a great power hitter as he was a great hitter with lots (and lots and lots and lots, etc.) of power.

Mind you, Bonds did have one advantage that Stanton can’t possibly have. At 6’6″, Stanton has a naturally bigger strike zone to cover than the 6’1″ Bonds ever had to deal with. Unless Stanton can get Hank Pym to whip up some custom-made shrinking particles, there’s nothing to be done about that.

Also, there’s a matter of swings.

With consistently perfect mechanics and impossibly quick wrists, Bonds had a short and compact swing that confounded even physics experts. He could let the ball get deep into the hitting zone, giving him more time to read the path of each pitch. When you can do that, you’re not going to be swinging and missing all that often.

Stanton’s swing is different. It’s a stretch to call it a “long” swing, but one wouldn’t call it “short” or “compact” either.

For example, Bryan Cole of Beyond the Box Score used Zepp data to find that Stanton’s swing features inferior hand speed and overall bat speed than Mike Trout’s swing. Elsewhere, Ryan Parker of Baseball Prospectus has argued that Stanton’s swing is more a picture of athletic perfection than it is of mechanical perfection.

Despite that, Parker says he wouldn’t change Stanton’s swing. As it happens, Bonds also doesn’t seem to be in a rush to impose any drastic changes on Stanton.

“I don’t need to tell Stanton much. He’s a great hitter,” said Bonds last week, via Craig Davis of the Sun Sentinel. “All I need to do is tweak a couple little things here and there and keep him motivated to keep moving.”

So, then. No size, and no swing. That leaves just one thing that Bonds can impart on Stanton to help him cut down on his whiffs.

In a word: wisdom.

Bonds was more than a work of art, both physically and mechanically, when he was at the plate. If we take it from former Giants teammate F.P. Santangelo, he was also just plain smarter than most pitchers:

This is a difficult point to illustrate, but it should ring true to anyone who watched Bonds hit, particularly when he was nigh impossible to get out between 2001 and 2004. He never looked surprised by anything that came his way.

Of course, this sounds like a skill that would be difficult to pass on to others. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done, and Bonds has shown a willingness to at least try with his hitting pupils.

Take Fowler, for example. Hall of Fame journalist Peter Gammons wrote a feature at GammonsDaily.com on Fowler’s work with Bonds, which included conversations about pitchers and how to read them:

“It’s the thought process that is so helpful, but it has to be what I see in each pitcher,” Fowler said. “Barry talks to me about what to look for, but he always says, ‘Watch the games, study the pitchers for yourself.’” Which is similar to the help Greg Maddux always gave fellow pitchers, like Derek Lowe and Clayton Kershaw. Lowe, in fact, once said “my career took its best turn when Maddux taught me how to watch games.”

It’s a safe guess that Stanton already does plenty of his own studying. All hitters do to some degree or another. But it’s also a safe guess that Bonds could change how Stanton studies for the better, and that it could make him more than just an immense physical threat in the batter’s box.

And it’s not hard to see where this could benefit Stanton the most. 

For his career, Stanton owns a 1.237 OPS when he’s ahead in the count. When he’s behind in the count, his OPS drops all the way to .589. That’s not a struggle that’s exclusive to him, to be sure, but David Schoenfield of ESPN.com noted that it has a specific root cause. Where Stanton remains a dangerous fastball hitter even when he’s behind in the count, he gets killed by anything off-speed. 

If Bonds can teach Stanton how to anticipate when those pitches are coming, he could find himself becoming less of an automatic out against them. If that happens, the game’s most feared slugger will suddenly have another layer of danger.

That’s not a notion that the opposition wants to consider. With pretty good defense and baserunning talents to go with his thunderous bat and strong eye, a healthy Stanton is an elite player as is. If Bonds has the key to improving his contact habit, he’ll only become more elite.

Also, the Marlins will be owed some credit. They don’t have many bright ideas, but nobody should be surprised if hiring one of baseball’s most legendary hitters to teach hitting is an exception.

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

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After much speculation, Barry Bonds is officially back in Major League Baseball as a hitting coach of the Miami Marlins. 

The Marlins announced their 2016 coaching staff Friday under manager Don Mattingly on Twitter, which includes Bonds as one of the team’s hitting coaches. 

This is Bonds’ first job as an MLB coach since his playing days ended following the 2007 season. The seven-time National League MVP did serve as a roving instructor with the San Francisco Giants during spring training in 2014. 

Bonds’ former San Francisco teammate, Rich Aurilia, recently told Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News about some of the work Bonds did with Giants hitters two years ago. 

“The players were almost apprehensive to ask him anything because of the magnitude of who he was,” Aurilia said. “But I remember (Brandon) Crawford asked him for help, and he worked with Craw on hitting left-handers, explained that process to him. They went out into the cages and back fields to work on stuff.”

In the same report, Baggarly noted Bonds never asked to become a full-time coach with the Giants. Marlins slugger Giancarlo Stanton is fully on board with the hiring, telling TMZ Sports (via Larry Brown of LarryBrownSports.com) Bonds was brilliant at what he did. 

“It’s all about the bottom line. Controversies aside, the man was a genius,” Stanton said. “For that knowledge to watch us play every day and give us back that knowledge is what we need.”

The Marlins can certainly use Bonds’ hitting expertise after finishing 26th in OPS and 29th in runs scored last year. He will also, for better or worse, bring a lot of media attention because of his profile.

The 51-year-old never had a harmonious relationship with the press during his playing days, but Bonds is one of the sports’ towering figures. The Marlins are a franchise in desperate need of both goodwill from fans and media interest. 

Bonds may not provide all the answers to solve Miami’s hitting woes, but he’s a great baseball mind who will be working with talent like Stanton, Christian Yelich and, if he’s not traded, Dee Gordon. Based on how the Marlins’ bats performed last year, there is nowhere for them to go but up. 

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The story about Mark McGwire possibly becoming the San Diego Padres bench coach mentions the word “steroids” exactly once, four paragraphs into a 10-paragraph report.

Maybe it’s just not that big a deal anymore. Maybe that’s as it should be.

And maybe that’s at least a small part of the reason Barry Bonds is talking to the Miami Marlins about becoming their hitting coach, as reported Monday by Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com.

Bonds followed McGwire on the road to infamy. Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams wrote in their landmark book Game of Shadows that jealousy over McGwire’s steroid-tainted 70-home run season in 1998 drove Bonds to start using the drugs himself.

So perhaps now Bonds has watched McGwire again and noticed how the story has changed in the six years since McGwire came out of seclusion to become a hitting coach with the St. Louis Cardinals. While McGwire will never fully escape the steroid cloud and may never make it to Cooperstown, he has made it back into baseball as a respected coach.

McGwire is seen now as a coach who cheated his way to that record season, but as Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune wrote: “It still stands as one of the game’s most memorable achievements.”

Bonds’ achievements were even more memorable, but at least for now, they’re seen as even more tainted. He broke McGwire’s record with his 73-homer season in 2001, and later broke Hank Aaron’s career home run record, but the proof of how little that means is how few baseball fans could tell you exactly how many home runs Bonds ended up with.

Aaron, of course, had 755. Babe Ruth, as any fan knows, hit 714.

Bonds? If you care, the number is 762 (and yes, I had to look it up).

In the years since he retired after the 2007 season, Bonds hasn’t gone into McGwire-like seclusion, but he has had limited exposure on the national baseball scene. He shows up at a few games in San Francisco, and he showed up as a special spring training instructor for the Giants in 2014.

He worked privately with other players, most notably last winter with Alex Rodriguez. Always a student of hitting, Bonds is reportedly pretty good at coaching it.

That doesn’t mean the transition to full-time coach would be a simple one.

Forget for a moment all that goes into coaching at the major league level—the travel, the hours and the sometimes-ungrateful players. For Bonds to make this new career work, he’d need to follow McGwire’s path. If he really wants to put the steroid talk in the past, he’ll need to deal with it up front, just as McGwire did.

It’s awfully hard to see Bonds doing that.

When he joined the Cardinals, McGwire “apologized profusely and repeatedly for his actions,” as Matthew Leach of MLB.com wrote then. The steroid story faded, in large part because, after the apology, there was little left for McGwire to say.

It couldn’t have been easy for McGwire. It would be a ton harder for Bonds, who always had a much-worse relationship with the media and with opposing fans, and who much more vocally and constantly denied his cheating.

Still, hitting coaches deal mostly with the players they coach. Many are next to invisible to the media. If Bonds never speaks publicly at all but his players succeed at the plate and praise him as one of the reasons, he’ll have accomplished something.

He won’t be able to erase the past any more than McGwire has. He won’t win many votes for the Hall of Fame any more than McGwire has. McGwire’s vote total has actually fallen each year of his coaching career, to a low of 10 percent last winter.

Bonds, a slam-dunk Hall of Famer if cheating wasn’t an issue, saw his vote total peak at 36.8 percent on the same ballot.

Cheating is an issue. That’s as it should be. But just as McGwire has had a coaching career somewhat separate from all the good and especially the bad he did as a player, perhaps Bonds can, too.

As of now, he hasn’t come close to escaping it. In Clark Spencer’s Miami Herald story on the possibility he’ll join the Marlins staff, the word “steroids” is included in the first sentence.

For now, that’s still who Barry Bonds is.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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