Giancarlo Stanton is one of the most powerful hitters in the history of baseball. No player hits the ball harder or farther. Nobody swings the bat with the sheer force that he does. If injuries didn’t cost him big chunks of his Yankees tenure, there’s no telling how many home runs he would have.
But those injuries did happen. Stanton enters 2026 with 453 home runs, a total boosted by his torrid home run pace in 2025 after he returned from a several-month absence due to double tennis elbow. With two
years left on his contract, he’s 47 away from a milestone that’s guaranteed admission to Cooperstown (for all who did it without clear ties to PED use, that is). After last year, it seems absolutely attainable.
But Father Time is undefeated, and while age has absolutely eroded his athleticism to the point that he cannot run nor field at even a mediocre rate, it hasn’t come for his bat speed or power. But Stanton’s now 36-years-old. How much longer does he have until that starts to erode, too? How much sand is left in the hourglass?
2025 statistics: 77 games, 281 PA, .273/.350/.594, 24 HR, 66 RBI, 158 wRC+, 10.2 BB%, 34.2 K%, -5 Defensive Runs Saved, -2 Outs Above Average, 1.9 fWAR
2026 FanGraphs Depth Charts projections: 96 games, 413 PA, .225/.303/.459, 24 HR, 65 RBI, 110 wRC+, 9.7 BB%, 30.8 K%, 0.8 fWAR
While Stanton didn’t make his season debut until June 16, the 2025 season was a massive step in the right direction for the aging slugger in two key areas.
For one, despite the fact that he played just 77 games, there’s a case to be made that 2025 was his best regular season in pinstripes. Sure, he played almost every day in 2018, was relatively healthy and effective in 2021, and was an all-star in 2022, but 2025 was the closest he’s ever come to being the Stanton the Yankees thought they acquired back in December 2017.
His batting average and on-base percentage were back to where they were in 2021, but he drove his slugging into hyperdrive. He played at a 50-home run pace for the first time as a Yankee and turned in a .321 ISO, his best since 2017. His expected stats were great, his bat speed and exit velo were spectacular as always, he put up his lowest chase rate as a Yankee, and, for a guy that apparently can’t open a bag of chips due to the pain in his elbows, he was extremely reliable. His last 61 games after a slow start? He slashed .287/.358/.672 with 23 home runs (61 HR pace).
But there was one other small victory for Stanton in 2025. While he missed half the season with his double tennis elbow, he did not suffer a lower-body soft-tissue injury in 2025. After a mountain of hamstring, oblique, calf, quad, and knee injuries in the previous six seasons, his lower body was completely healthy in 2025 for the first time since 2018. He was even healthy enough to play an emergency right field when Aaron Judge needed to take his spot at DH due to a flexor strain.
For these two things to happen at age 35 is extremely encouraging, but not necessarily a sign of things to come. With Stanton’s elbows, it seems to be a pain management issue and, considering he’s apparently been playing through this pain for a long time now and continues to swing the fastest bat in the game, I think it’s more likely that if he misses prolonged time in 2026, it’ll be for the same reasons as he did from 2019-24.
Aside from the power, what we do know we will get from Stanton in 2026 is leadership. Judge is the captain, but he’s been a “lead by example” captain. Stanton has taken the role of being a vocal leader for the last several years, often speaking to the team during its summer swoons and truly embodying what it means to be a Yankee.
This was a place he wanted to be when the Marlins went shopping him in 2017, and he hasn’t taken the pinstripes for granted. He’s been the team’s best and most consistent playoff performer since coming on board, even if he was uncharacteristically poor in 2025. He’s said many times that he believes his career and his legacy are incomplete without a ring, even if it might not be a box he has to check to get to Cooperstown. He understands that, to be a star on the New York Yankees and not contribute to a World Series championship, your legacy is incomplete.
If 2025 is the year the Yankees get over the hump, Stanton will be right in the middle of it, entrenched as the team’s designated hitter that provides a tremendous amount of thump to one of the league’s premier offenses. With an ALCS MVP already under his belt, a World Series run with another Stantonian performance could entrench him as a Yankee legend, but he’s running out of playoff runs to do it.
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