This Day In Marlins History: Giancarlo Stanton Debuts

In Fish Stripes' continued attempt to remind people of the past of the Florida Marlins along with the present and future of the Miami Marlins, we bring you a new feature published three or so times a week entitled This Day In Marlins History! The concept itself is very simple: whenever we publish this, we find an interesting fact or tidbit related to the Florida / Miami Marlins and write a little bit about that event.

On this day, June 8. 2010, a certain top prospect debuted for the Florida Marlins following a monster minor league season.

The player now known as Giancarlo Stanton came into the 2010 season highly regarded. Heading in 2010, Stanton was the third-best prospect in baseball according to Baseball America, behind only Atlanta Braves outfielder Jason Heyward and Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg. When you come into the season behind only those two names, you are doing something right.

And then Stanton started the 2010 season, and he seemed to do everything right.

Stanton started that season in Double-A Jacksonville after a semi-rough stretch in Double-A in 2009. After hitting just .231/.311/.455 in 2009 in Jacksonville, Stanton returned and dominated the level. He batted a ridiculous .313/.442/.729 in 240 PA in Double-A, knocking out 21 home runs along the way. In comparison, in about 100 more PA in the previous year, he hit 16 home runs. Stanton crushed pitchers so badly that Baseball Prospectus estimated a four-win season based on his performance in just 240 PA.

On June 8, Stanton was promoted because the Marlins had not gotten enough production from center fielder Cameron Maybin. The team demoted Maybin and brought Stanton up and the Fish were ready for anything from the youngster. In his first game of his major league career, he delivered, going thee-for-five with three singles.

What was funny was that Stanton's first professional hit in his professional PA was a tapper that just got over the pitcher's head and trickled up the middle for an infield single. For a player who was supposed to be a power phenom, Stanton's first impact on a professional field was a tiny one. But the next two hits were smoked, and Stanton only got better from there.

By the end of the season, Stanton had hit 22 home runs in just 396 PA, hitting just over 22 percent of his fly balls over the fence for homers, and being almost a three-win player in about 60 percent of a full season. Of course now, Stanton has evovled to become the best player on the Marlins and one of the best in baseball, so the Fish were lucky to have such a great talent debut in 2010. And this was how that amazing talent that is Giancarlo Stanton debuted.