The Yankees 2026 regular season and pursuit of another American League East title and, most of all, a World Series championship is underway with about as few hitches as a fan could ask for. Despite a troubling start for the bottom half of the order, the Yankees have managed plenty of runs to win games (seven of their first nine to put them 2.5 games up on the Tampa Bay Rays) through excellent starting pitching and contributions from hitters 1-5 in the lineup.
One player that has really had a hot start
(and needed it, after only playing 77 games last season but raking in those games) is Giancarlo Stanton. However, he didn’t get here without some legitimate concerns from those who follow the team.
After suffering tennis elbow in 2025, there were reports that the Yankees slugger couldn’t “open a bottle or a bag of chips” due to the pain he felt. So, there were questions about whether or not Stanton would be able to return to baseball at all, let alone be his normal self. And while 2026 hasn’t looked the same so far in terms of the power Stanton has provided, he has still proven to be useful in the top part of the order.
Stanton currently sits with a slashline of .394/.429/.545 for an absurd 182 wRC+ and 0.4 fWAR through eight games. And, yes, that’s a very small sample, but when someone like Stanton is leading the team in batting average, hits, and OPS, even for a short time, it’s something that’s noteworthy given how far that strays from his normal archetype.
As for how Stanton has managed these hits, it’s primarily due to a different approach at the plate, one that’s focused on making contact instead of swinging for the fences.
A look at Stanton’s Statcast page on Baseball Savant suggests an approach that includes slowing the bat down, making contact through the zone, and hitting the ball in the air. Stanton’s bat speed is down 1.4 mph since last season, leading to a lower average exit velocity and a max exit velocity down almost two mph from last year, but he’s getting the ball off the ground, sitting with a 72% air rate compared to a 28% groundball rate. And given his frame, he’s still able to swing the bat at a fast pace and give the ball a good trip to the outfield when need be. He’s barrelling the ball fewer times, but he also has his highest solid contact rate since 2021.
Even if Stanton has slightly altered his approach, it is only a matter of time before he returns to Earth, or at least stops hitting almost .400 without much power. And, at 36-years-old with bad elbows, there’s likely only so much his body can do, and it’s worth wondering if he’ll be able to get to as much power as he has even in recent years. Generally speaking, it’s likely he will still be an above-average hitter and hit for some insane power on occasion, but there’s still some concern in the lesser bat speed and thump that he’s shown thus far, as you need a guy like Stanton to have the potential for home runs every time he steps up to the plate.
While Stanton’s injuries weren’t something that could keep him off the field, they seem to be having an effect on his ability to swing the bat with the same inhuman force that he has for his whole career. An alternate approach is working for now, but the Yankees will probably be best off if Stanton shows off the form he had in their 2024 run to the World Series and for most of his time on the field last year. What he’s done so far might be too good to be true, as Stanton isn’t going to be a guy who hits above .300 without driving the ball harder than anyone else. We’ll see in the coming weeks how his swing, and his production, start to stabilize.
