Educating Twitter: Giancarlo Stanton and the Hall of Fame

In recent weeks, folks have apparently noticed that Giancarlo Stanton is on track to reach 500 home runs for his career. I’m not sure why they’ve noticed now, because the season Stanton is having is sort of tepid. It certainly isn’t noteworthy with his 20 homers and .242/.300/.477 batting line, and he didn’t recently pass a home run milestone or anything. He’s at 422 for his career as of right now, meaning he got #400 last year and won’t be hitting any other big round numbers anytime soon, so the sudden interest is a little odd.

Still, it’s definitely happening. There’s a Reddit thread about it dating from May, and a CBS Sports article noted it as well. It might all stem from this Dan Szymborski article on Fangraphs from around the same time, in which he noted his quest for 500 homers and tied it to his chances of making the Hall of Fame. Now the question is being raised on Twitter again.