Reggie Jackson, Jim Thome, Adam Dunn, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, and Miguel Cabrera. That’s a list of two Hall of Famers, another who will get in, two that have the resume for induction, and Adam Dunn who was a much better player than the popular narrative seems to be about him. It’s a list of pretty damn good ballplayers. It’s also a list of the only people to have struck out in MLB more than Giancarlo Stanton.
We’re going to be closely watching Stanton’s chase for 500 home runs, as he currently
sits at 453 with two years left on his big extension. He’s averaged 29 home runs a season from 2021 onward, and if he does that in 2026 and ‘27, that’s a tidy 511 and a pretty good Hall of Fame case. Like the list above, Stanton’s a power hitter that’s still worth enough to keep around through the end of his contract, but that power comes with a fair amount of swing and miss.
2059 strikeouts through 16 MLB seasons has Big G seventh on the all-time list, just 46 behind Cabrera. Again since 2021 he’s struck out 132 times a year on average, and a repeat campaign would set him just 96 behind A-Rod and 115 back of Sammy Sosa for fourth place all-time. FanGraphs’ Depth Charts projections peg Stanton for a slightly more whiff-happy season, 143 strikeouts — in 469 PA across 109 games, baking in the knowledge that the Yankee DH will almost certainly have an IL stint or two a year until he retires.
The length of those IL stints is probably the kicker here. We can reliably expect Stanton to strike out 30-ish percent of the time, and to his credit, he’s remained quite effective — a 122 wRC+ in that same five-year window as above — to the point he’s more than worth it to keep in the lineup when he’s available. If he plays 110 games a year or so the next two seasons, Adam Dunn’s 2379 total becomes pretty reachable. If that games played slips down to 75 or so, like 2025, both HR and strikeout totals get harder and harder to reach.
I think Reggie’s 2597 is safe unless the Marlins bring Stanton back for some kind of final swan song. The Yankees aren’t sentimental enough to keep him around purely for nostalgia, and the Marlins aren’t usually the kind of team to spend that kind of “show” money. There’s also the potential of missed games in the 2027 season, and while a joint race up the HR and strikeout career leaderboard is relatively low stakes, the way that we evaluate major league careers means every game missed, to injury or labor issues, affects the obituary of Giancarlo Stanton’s baseball life.
More to the point is the kind of player that litters the career strikeout leaderboard. We’re taught that strikeouts are the one thing a hitter must avoid, hey something weird can happen when you put the ball in play, right? Yet the top 20 guys who whiffed the most include six Hall of Famers, two more that would be in the Hall if there was any consistency within a voting bloc’s morals, Miggy who will walk into Cooperstown, and then the very best of the Hall of Very Good — Andrés Galarraga, Andrew McCutchen, Nelson Cruz.
You need to be good enough to land yourself a major deal, and remain effective enough through the length of the deal that it’s worthwhile to keep you on the roster. So far Giancarlo Stanton has managed to do exactly that, and while the total strikeout king leaderboard isn’t the sport’s most glamourous, there aren’t any nobodies on the list.
