TAMPA, Fla. — Giancarlo Stanton arrived at George M. Steinbrenner Field this week looking leaner than a year ago, moving freely through drills and talking like a man who believes his best chapter in pinstripes is still ahead of him. His manager noticed. His teammates noticed. The question is whether his elbows will cooperate.
Stanton enters his ninth season with the Yankees carrying a career that even he considers unfinished. He has 423 career home runs. He won the NL MVP in 2017. He earned ALCS MVP honors in 2024 by almost single-handedly destroying the Guardians. But there is no ring, and for Stanton, that makes the whole thing incomplete.
“The story is still being written,” Stanton said Tuesday. “But the point of being a Yankee is being a champion. There’s always going to be a stain there without that.”
The championship void that defines everything
When the Yankees acquired Giancarlo Stanton from the Marlins in December 2017, the pairing with Aaron Judge was supposed to produce parades. Both sluggers were in their prime. The power was staggering. The championship felt inevitable.
Eight years later, the parade has not happened. The closest the Yankees came was the 2024 World Series against the Dodgers, a matchup that held personal meaning for Stanton. He grew up in Southern California. He fell in love with baseball as a kid in the left-field bleachers at Chavez Ravine, chasing batting practice home runs. Playing in that World Series was a full-circle moment.
The Dodgers won in five games. When the Yankees received their AL pennant rings the following spring, Stanton told his teammates not to wear them in public.
“This isn’t the one we wanted,” Stanton told teammates that night.
That hunger has not faded. Stanton turns 37 in November. He knows the window is not forever.
“You’ve got to get over the hump,” Stanton said. “Obviously, the goal is the World Series. The goal is a championship, but you’ve got to do what’s in between. Not to get there, but to complete it.”
The elbow issue that will not go away
Here is the part that complicates the narrative. Stanton has been dealing with severe tennis elbow in both arms since the second half of the 2024 season. The condition forced him to miss the start of 2025 and limited him to just 77 games.
On Tuesday, Stanton was honest about the prognosis. The elbows are not healed. They will never fully heal as long as he keeps swinging a bat.
“It’s not going anywhere,” Stanton said. “It’s always going to be maintenance. But it didn’t hinder me from any work, and that’s the most important thing.”
The mixed message is hard to ignore. Stanton says the condition is permanent. He also says it did not limit his offseason training. Both things can be true, but for a player who has spent significant stretches of his Yankees tenure on the injured list, the combination creates unease.
When healthy in 2025, Stanton was extremely productive. He slashed .273/.350/.594 with 24 homers and 66 RBIs in just 249 at-bats. Extrapolated over a full season, those numbers would put him among the most dangerous hitters in the American League. The problem has always been staying on the field.
Boone sees a leaner, sharper version in camp
Manager Aaron Boone offered an encouraging assessment of what he has seen so far. He said Stanton looked noticeably leaner than last spring and was jumping into every drill without hesitation.
“He had a good winter,” Boone said. “He’s always in good shape, but he looks really good to me, really lean. He’s jumping into all the drills, ready to go right now. I feel like we’re in a good spot right now.”
Boone plans to wait about a week before getting Stanton into Grapefruit League games. Most of his playing time will come at designated hitter, though the manager did not rule out some outfield reps to keep the option open.
“He’s evolved, how he trains, how he takes care of himself,” Boone said. “In a perfect way, he’s healthy the whole way. I’ll be proactive with giving him days, just to be able to keep him healthier long term.”
The Yankees need Stanton’s bat more than ever
The Yankees won 94 games last season but bowed out in the ALDS against the Blue Jays. They brought back much of the same core. Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt were re-signed. Gerrit Cole is working his way back from Tommy John surgery. The lineup needs Stanton to be healthy and productive alongside Judge if this team is going to push past the AL’s elite.
Stanton is owed $29 million in 2026, the second-to-last year of the 13-year, $325 million contract he signed with the Marlins. The Yankees are paying for a franchise-caliber bat. They need him on the field for 130 games or more to get full value.
Stanton has not played more than 119 games in a season since 2022 and has topped 130 games just once since joining the Yankees. The talent has never been the question. Durability has always been the obstacle between what Stanton is and what the Yankees need him to be.
He knows it. So does everyone in the organization. And yet, Stanton stood in front of reporters Tuesday and made it clear that he is not ready to accept an incomplete ending.
The talent is there. The motivation is fierce. The elbows are a question that only a full season can answer.
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