Since his long-awaited return to the 2025 Yankees lineup, Giancarlo Stanton has been irreplaceable. The 35-year-old slugger is in the midst of perhaps his best stretch since joining the Yankees way back in 2018, and is proving that he can still be the otherworldly offensive threat that we’ve seen him be. This all comes, of course, after he missed the first two and a half months of the season, with 2025 looking like a good encapsulation of the Yankee portion of Stanton’s career.
On Tuesday, in the
Yankees’ win over Minnesota, we enjoyed what was envisioned back in 2017 — Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton reaching base a combined eight times, with each of them accounting for a booming home run. It was perhaps the high point in what’s been one of the better runs of Stanton’s 16-year career. Although much of his time in New York has been up-and-down or injury-ridden, we could be seeing some of the best of Big G in pinstripes, fittingly coming after an IL stint that held him out of the lineup until mid-June.
Stanton’s timeline since being acquired by the Yankees has been a rocky one. He was good in 2018, played in just 41 total games between 2019 and ‘20, before largely returning to form in 2021. In 2022, he ran into plenty of homers in 110 games, but was not the same hitter he had been, and the story was largely the same in ‘24. In 2023, we saw the worst of it — Stanton posted his first season ever with a sub-100 wRC+ (87), while he hit well below the Mendoza line and got on base at a paltry .275 clip.
A year ago, hope of a Stanton resurgence was greatly diminished. That was before he slugged over .700 and belted seven homers in 14 postseason games. The heroic performance reignited hope in Stanton’s future, and like clockwork, he entered the 2025 season with murky injury trouble that seemed to threaten his entire season.
After two-and-a-half months on the shelf, he has come out of the gates on fire, playing some of his best baseball since his NL MVP campaign nearly a decade ago. In 42 games so far this season, Stanton is slashing .300/.376/.586 with a 164 wRC+ that is higher than any mark he’s posted in a full season. He’s already hit 12 homers in this stretch, and has clearly maintained his irreplaceable skill — crushing the ball like no one else. His max and average exit velocity numbers are still on another planet from all but one or two other big leaguers, and his hit hard hit rate and barrels are about as good as they’ve been at any point in his career.
Between his performance in last year’s World Series and this torrid return from the IL, we are in the midst of what is probably his best stretch in a Yankee uniform. In the bigger picture, the elite production and unsurprising display of his still-mammoth power is a reminder that he can still be that Giancarlo Stanton.
Of course, with the tremendous highs Stanton is experiencing right now, the lows he tends to find are probably inevitable. While it feels fair to write off the particularly bad 2023 season as a fluke, anyone who has watched Yankee baseball post-2018 knows he is prone to stretches that feel hopeless. But, all of a sudden, he can run into a few homers and turn in a productive season.
He may have his fair share of limitations on his overall game, but there is no denying that Giancarlo Stanton is still a supremely talented hitter. We are seeing right now some of the best he has to offer with the bat, and it’s as fun to watch as anyone. It won’t last forever (nothing does!), but the highs are great enough to make the slumps more palatable. It may be a good exercise to keep that in mind next time he loses it for a stretch, but for now, it’s best to just enjoy Big G while he’s still crushing.
