Giancarlo Stanton Currently Having His Best Stretch Ever As A Yankee, Hitting As Well As Virtually Anyone In The Sport, Is Nothing Short Of Insane

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At the end of the 2023 season, things were as bleak as can be when it came to the outlook for Giancarlo Stanton. For the first time in his career, he was struggling while healthy. In the past his limited results would be due to an injury that derailed a season. That season, however, he couldn't produce anything, especially towards the end of the year. It was sad because very few have handled being a Yankees as well as he has. I'm not sure anyone on the roster deserves a ring more than Giancarlo who has handled the pressures of New York better than most in recent memory. During his struggles he's faced the media and been the first guy to call himself out. He's carried the weight of the pinstripe pressures brilliantly. In that clubhouse when he speaks you listen. The organization brings in a lot of guys who cannot handle this shit. Big G is the role model for the kind of mentality you need to be a Yankee. I wish we had more of him. 

In 2024 he experienced a resurgence smashing 27 homers and posting an OPS of .773. Was it anything close to what we expect or hope from Stanton? No, but at least those numbers helped the lineup and gave them a useable player for a good stretch. Then the 2024 postseason rolled around and all of a sudden the Giancarlo of old came to play. In 14 games and 62 plate appearances he mashed 7 bombs with a .709 SLG. He posted an absurd 1.048 OPS and became one of the more feared hitters in the entire postseason. Considering how bad 2023 went, that run was stunning. That's just who he's been since coming to New York. When things matter the most he shines. Sure he misses a ton of games, but the ability to constantly elevate in the postseason is invaluable, especially when you see 99 struggle like he has over the years in October. 

This past offseason Giancarlo complained of TWO bum elbows, which was later revealed to be epicondylitis. In dumb person speak, his elbows didn't work and it was being viewed as a serious injury. Certainly a bad thing to hear for a power-hitting slugger at his age. There was legitimate fear he could miss the entire season, making you think that he truly gave it all during the postseason and had nothing left because of it. Admirable, but devastating. 

Stanton was eventually activated off the IL in mid-June as he got to a level of pain with the elbows that he could tolerate. After a brief slow start, things began to pick up during the first week of July. It's safe to say things have escalated to a point no one expected, even for Stanton's biggest supporters. 

Giancarlo is in the midst of the best stretch of baseball he's ever had as a Yankee. That's not hyperbole either, he's never done this for this long. It's fucking crazy what we're watching. You actually can't pitch to this dude. 

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Last night he smacked two more homers in the Yankees' bludgeoning against the Rays. 

This two month stretch has been unbelievable. Everything has been destroyed. Look at the company he's joined. 

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At the start of the season, considering his elbow problems, if you told me he'd be hitting at a pace similar to his MVP year in Miami I'd call the police and have you taken away, straight to the looney bin. But that's what's happening….

Listen, I don't know how much longer this can go on for. How can you expect it to? 35 year old Stanton hitting like one of the best in the entire sport? Every day we wake up and find out he isn't going on the IL it feels like house money in a way. As long as he keeps this up the heart of the order being some combination of Judge-Bellinger-Stanton-Rice creates a fucking nightmare for opposing pitchers. And don't look past Ben Rice by the way, he's awesome. You know how hard it is to find a young player who can play catcher with these kind of hard-hitting metrics? 

Rice's numbers hit a big of a snag after his hot April, but it really all came down to bad luck, hitting screaming liners right at guys. Now he's witnessing water find his level in a positive way. The fact that Rice can handle playing catcher while swinging like this makes him one of the more valuable players in the sport. 

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It's a shame Klemmer wrote him off after his short 2024 stint and declared that he is not an MLB player. Don't ya think the Mets could use a guy like Rice? Oh well. 

But back to Stanton —another guy Klemmer said was finished last year —what we have here is incredible. Does Judge's elbow injury make Giancarlo's playing time situation complicated to figure out? Absolutely. Judge is strictly a DH right now, which means Stanton is limited to either playing RF or coming off the bench. You obviously want his bat in there every day, but this current situation doesn't allow for it. At the moment they're being very stingy with playing him in the field outside of Yankee Stadium, given the short porch and how little ground he has to cover. Stanton has long said he hits better and feels more locked in when he's playing the field. The issue with that is you're trying to dodge an injury with him while also putting out a competent defense. You can't have an alignment that features Dominguez and Stanton, you'll get killed defensively. So far, anytime he's been out there he hasn't been an issue, but it does feel like we're playing with fire. Once Judge gets back out there things become a ton easier to manage. When that happens remains to be seen, so we're stuck with this infrequency. For example, tonight he won't be out there against the Rays after playing last night. I think you'll see him in RF vs. Boston three of the four games, but we'll see. 

That Sox series starting tomorrow is massive. During their surge the Yankees have leapfrogged the Sox and Mariners to claim the top wild card spot. Toronto has even sputtered a bit and now only lead New York by three games in the loss column with plenty of games left. A lot can happen from here until the end of September. This four game set though is probably the biggest Yankees-Sox series since 2021? Boston has owned them this year, but that didn't involve Stanton playing. Is this team still stupid? Very much so and led by a braindead manager, but they can hit and have now stabilized the bullpen a bit with the addition of Bednar and Weaver finding himself as the 8th inning guy. We'll see how they perform with a lot on the line and the margins razor thin. Beating teams like Minnesota, St. Louis, and Tampa is nice because that allows games vs the Sox to have this much importance, but you gotta show up at home in late August here. Buckle up.