The New York Yankees are already dealing with an injury to one of their top power hitters. Giancarlo Stanton has soreness in both elbows and hasn’t swung a bat in three to four weeks, he revealed Monday morning. He said the injury is something he played through last season, and added he expects to do the same this year.
“It’s definitely not just soreness,” Stanton said Monday (via the New York Post). “It was a manageable thing (last year). That’s how last year and this year will go. It’s not a, ‘When did it feel good, when did it feel bad?’ There’s always a pain level there. You got to deal with that. It’s just the wisest point to give time right now.”
Stanton added that surgery is “not a worry” at this point in time, but put his level of pain at “very high.”
Stanton missed about a month with a hamstring strain last season and slugged 27 homers in the 114 games he did play. He had an excellent postseason as well, setting a Yankees single-postseason record with seven homers in 14 games. That helped earn him ALCS MVP honors. Stanton said he did that while managing two barking elbows.
The Yankees have plenty of experience playing without Stanton. A variety of injuries, mostly lower body muscle pulls, have limited him to 505 of 870 possible regular season games since 2019, or 58%. Stanton is a full-time DH at this point. When he misses time, the Yankees rotate players through the DH slot rather than use a new permanent fixture.
Assuming Stanton misses the start of the regular season, the extra at-bats figure to go to fourth outfielder Trent Grisham and New York’s hodgepodge of extra infielders (Oswaldo Cabrera, DJ LeMahieu, Oswald Peraza). First baseman Ben Rice, who had a three-homer game last summer, could also be in the mix.
Now 35, Stanton enters 2025 with 429 career home runs, most among active players. He has three more years remaining on his contract, giving him a chance to reach 500 homers. The Yankees owe him $66 million over those three years.
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