Roger Rubin: Yankees must decide if it's worth it to keep Giancarlo Stanton
Yankees’ Giancarlo Stanton looks on from the dugout against the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
On a weekend when their injury-hampered lineup finally will regain one of its stars, the Yankees also learned they probably will never get back to full strength this season.
Cody Bellinger was back in the home clubhouse at the Stadium on Saturday after his two-game minor-league rehab assignment, preparing to be activated from the injured list Sunday for his first game since suffering a Grade 2 hamstring strain in the last week of July. It should be a godsend for the club, which has averaged only 3.5 runs per game without him.
It’s the batting order’s misfortune that the windfall comes paired with the calamity that slugger Giancarlo Stanton no longer is close to returning and might be lost for the season to yet another leg injury.
Before first pitch of the Yankees’ 4-3 loss to Toronto, manager Aaron Boone announced that Stanton, in the final stages of recovery from the right calf strain that landed him on the IL in the last week of April, suffered a left calf strain earlier in the week.
“He was running a couple days ago, had fallen and the other calf is strained,” Boone said. “It's a moderate grade [strain]. What that means moving forward: We're not ruling anything out. He'll obviously continue to work to try to get it right and hopefully be available, but obviously we're at a point in the calendar where it gets challenging.”
“Challenging” may be the most apropos word to describe what the Yankees have been dealing with in recent years when it comes to getting the most out of the oft-injured potential Hall of Famer.
When he’s healthy enough to play, Stanton, 36, is a feared run producer whose presence in the batting order benefits all of the hitters around him. But in the past five seasons, he has played in only 426 of a possible 777 games.
His 2025 season illustrates this almost perfectly. Tendinitis in both elbows kept him out until the middle of June. He returned to play in 77 games and had an OPS of .944 with 24 home runs and 66 RBIs.
“We all know what he’s capable of, and especially what he does in the playoffs when we get to the playoffs,” Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. “He’s just a substantial piece for our team and we really want him back and really need him back.”
Stanton, 36, was batting .256 with three home runs and 14 RBIs in 24 games when he was injured while jogging to second on a walk to Chisholm on April 24. He was well along in his rehab from that injury when he suffered a second one in a different part of the same calf, setting him back. That may end up being all the Yankees get for the $29 million he drew this season.
The 2017 National League MVP has yet to win a World Series and stands 44 home runs shy of a legacy-cementing 500, so he figures to want to keep playing. What the Yankees might need to do now is a cost-benefit analysis on whether they want him to keep playing for them.
The last few seasons have challenged them with his lack of availability, but when he has played, he has been very good. No one has forgotten his remarkable seven home runs and 16 RBIs in 14 games during the Yankees’ postseason run that reached the World Series in 2024.
Stanton’s contract guarantees $25 million for the 2027 season. For 2028, there is a club option for another $25 million that can be bought out for $10 million.
And as one considers the $35 million that the Yankees might have to eat to part ways with Stanton, the collective bargaining agreement between ownership and the Players Association after their current contract expires after this season must be factored in.
The sides are very far apart in negotiations. The owners have dug in hard for a salary cap. The players say they will never accept one. It has all the makings of a major work stoppage that could seriously shorten or even wipe out the 2027 season.
So it’s worth wondering how many more games Stanton will play in pinstripes.
One cannot entirely look at the Stanton calculus as pros and cons on a ledger because he adds value in many other ways as a trusted and respected voice in the clubhouse and as a sage adviser for hitters.
“He's in our hitters' meetings every day,” Boone said. “He's in the trenches with the guys as much as he can be. I admire him so much and who he is and the way he goes about things. And the same rings true for everyone in that room. They look up to him. They respect him. When he speaks, you listen.”
Stanton looks like a long shot to return to the lineup right now, especially given how long his recovery times have been. If he can’t get back, the Yankees will need to decide how much to wager on his future.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
