LOS ANGELES – Last October, Giancarlo Stanton reminded us of his bonafides as one of the most prolific performers of his generation, but in recent years much of the discourse surrounding the giant slugger has been more about his shortcomings than his strengths.
During last year’s general manager meetings, Yankees GM Brian Cashman raised a few eyebrows with his comments about what to expect from the former MVP moving forward.
“We’re trying to limit the time he’s gone, but I’m not going to tell you he’s going to play every game next year because that’s not the case,” Cashman said. “He will end up getting injured again, more likely than not, because it seems to be part of his game.”
It was an unusual display of honesty from a GM about a player — a show of significant and understandable backlash — but in simple terms, Cashman was right. Hamstring, knee, quad, groin, calf, Achilles tendon; Stanton has been on the injured list over the course of his fifteen-year career due to ailments in virtually every part of his lower half. In turn, his mobility has been drastically reduced, ending his days as an outfielder and severely limiting his speed on the base paths. Overall, Stanton’s production and availability over the course of a 162-game regular season are undeniably not what they once were.
But even as injuries caused a slow decline from his days as an everyday outfielder competing for MVP awards to his current role as a design hitter who misses about 50 games a year, Stanton’s signature skill has endured: the ability to hit a baseball. influencing with more power than perhaps any player who has ever seen the game.
“It’s tremendous bat speed,” Yankees assistant hitting coach Casey Dykes said. “It’s the best in the world. That’s where the power comes from.”
In addition to the batted ball data it has tracked since 2015 – data that has validated Stanton’s status as unparalleled when it comes to exit velocity – Statcast introduced bat tracking in 2024, providing a new look at the physical attributes of each batter’s swing in the form of bat speed. Sure enough, Stanton’s speed, even at age 34, exists on a level all its own, averaging 80.2 miles per hour. It’s not hard to imagine this was the case during his prime in Miami, but the fact that Stanton has kept this special trait intact over the years is no small feat.
“You see a lot of guys who are crazy-athletic early in their careers and have a ton of speed, and those things go away at the end of their careers,” Dykes said. “For him, he has been able to maintain what he has: being the best in the world at that. It tells how diligent he is in his training and how he takes care of himself.”
Stanton’s batting stance has also evolved over the course of his career, as he occasionally reevaluates his ideal position in the batter’s box so he can continue swinging the bat with as much ferocity. “It was the full spectrum from pretty open to very closed, now kind of tapering,” Stanton said of how he has adjusted his stance by changing the angle and direction of his feet relative to the thrower. “I’m always in the lab looking for the way I can be most successful over a long period of time, and that has changed and evolved over the years. And you know, I lost some hair because of it and added some gray tones… but yeah, that’s part of it, and that’s where we are now.”
Although his secondary skills have largely evaporated, Stanton’s dedication to doing whatever it takes to maintain his superior strength and his ability to access it has allowed him to not only remain relevant into his mid-30s, but also to reemerge as the main character amid the flight from New York to the US. his first World Series in 15 years. His already stellar postseason resume was further bolstered this month by his epic performance in the ALCS vs. Cleveland, during which he hit four home runs in five games, earning ALCS MVP honors. It is the final chapter in a great career that in many ways has been defined by the long ball.
In fact, Stanton has been synonymous with home runs for as long as he’s been swinging a bat — something you can’t say about even his closest colleagues in the energy department. Take Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, two of the few players in the world capable of impacting a baseball in the same way Stanton does. We now recognize this duo as the standard-bearers of annual dinger production – no two players have collected more long balls over the past four seasons than Judge (196) and Ohtani (178) – but it took time for each to translate his physical gifts into significant home run totals.
Ohtani’s thunderous raw power was on intermittent display early in his career, but he didn’t hit more than 22 home runs in a single year, in Japan or in the MLB, until 2021, his ninth professional season. Judge, like Stanton, was a multi-sport star in high school who possessed an unusual combination of size and athleticism, but his supreme strength didn’t produce gaudy statistics until he mastered his swing mechanics at the highest level. Judge hit just 18 home runs in 169 collegiate games at Fresno State and never hit more than 20 home runs in a minor league season.
For Stanton there was no delay. In his first full professional season in 2008, he led the Low-A South Atlantic League with 39 home runs as one of the league’s youngest players. Still a teenager throughout his second pro campaign, Stanton’s crafty prowess propelled him to Double-A, where he continued to hit tape-measure shots that witnesses still reminisce about. He made his MLB debut at the age of 20 in June 2010 and shortly after hit a grand slam for his first career home run.
Since then, 428 more home runs have followed in the regular season, moving Stanton to 51st place on the all-time list. With the retirements of Miguel Cabrera and Nelson Cruz last year, Stanton now holds the title of home run king among active MLB players. Although his pace has slowed in recent years due to injuries, he remains on a plausible path to becoming the 29th member of the 500-home-run club.
Of course, chasing those milestones isn’t a concern for Stanton right now. He is completely focused on the task at hand, which is helping the Yankees secure the 28th championship in franchise history. And with each successive ultra-clutch swing, it becomes increasingly clear that Stanton’s latest hot streak in October is the product not only of his prodigious strength, but also of his meticulous preparation. Manager Aaron Boone spoke during the ALCS about how Stanton especially benefits from seeing pitchers multiple times and praised all the work Stanton does behind the scenes to put himself in position to succeed. “His preparation and his ability to just hang in there and focus is impressive,” Boone said.
“You have to study pitchers all the time. It doesn’t matter what time of year. You have to do your own homework and make a plan of how you think they will approach you and gather information here and there,” Stanton said Thursday. “But at the end of the day, you know your thought process best as a hitter. So it’s best to get your own idea of how you’ll be approached.”
In addition to the opposing arm study sessions, Stanton also places enormous value on learning the environments in which he will be hitting. Prior to Games 3-5 of the ALCS in Cleveland, Stanton and Judge were on the field long before both teams’ standard batting practice, swinging at different speeds and angles from the machine.
“Downloading the background, downloading the depth perception,” Stanton said after the Yankees won the AL pennant in Game 5. “It’s very important to be ready to go in the first inning and not have to see a few pitches to to get my timing and download because that could determine the game right there in the beginning.
The two sluggers were also the only Yankees to take part in live batting practice Thursday during New York’s practice at Dodger Stadium ahead of World Series Game 1.
“I understand how important every field, every moment is,” Stanton said of participating this time of year and the work it takes to feel ready. “I’m just trying to get every bit of information I can, every piece of film, all the swings I need. I’m exhausted. That’s why I’m exhausted after this [games] – and I enjoy that. I enjoy that stuff. I have to. You’re not always going to go out there and perform well, but as long as I have all the information I can, I’m in a good place.”
While he’s far from the only Yankee making his first World Series appearance, Stanton’s wait to reach this point has been particularly long: Among active players, only Andrew McCutchen, Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado have played more games without the World Series than Stanton. for now. That the Dodgers are the opponent serves as an especially compelling backdrop for Stanton’s first Fall Classic. This isn’t just the team he grew up rooting for. It’s also the team that signed him after he was a high school star at nearby Sherman Oaks and the team that was reportedly his preferred landing spot when it became clear in 2017 that the Marlins were going to trade him.
Stanton has said that Dodger Stadium is his favorite ballpark to play in, and it is also the site of two of his most memorable moments as a big league player: his 2015 home run that completely cleared the left-field pavilion , and the 2022 All-Star Game, in which he homered and earned MVP honors.
Now, after Stanton helped the Yankees reach this point through two more rounds of postseason excellence, the stage is clear for him to further cement his October legacy, starting Friday in Los Angeles.
