The 2025 MLB season is just around the corner but there is uncertainty at the moment regarding the status for Opening Day of New York Yankees star designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton.
While the Yankees are in Florida for spring training, the former National League Most Valuable Player has traveled back to New York reportedly to undergo testing on his elbows.
As concerns swirl around the health of the 35-year-old Stanton, his superstar teammate, Aaron Judge, offered his thoughts on the situation while saying that he believes Stanton remains to have an optimistic outlook.
“We’ll see what the doctors say about what’s going on,” Judge said h/t Bryan Hoch of MLB.com). “I’ve been checking with him every day, talking to him. We went out to dinner. He’s got a positive mindset with everything. … He has some downtime right now, just to get things right. I want a healthy G in the middle of the season.”
Judge, the reigning American League MVP, also implied that he’d rather have Stanton missing time early in the season to heal up than brave through the issue and let it affect performance.
“The toughest thing is when you try to battle these things during the season, because then you’re 50 percent, trying to battle,” Judge shared. “If he needs to take care of something right now, I think it’s the best [time]. Take your rest, take your time. Do whatever you need to do now and be ready to go. If it’s the early part of the season, I’d rather have that than battle through something all the way until August and the end of the season.”
Stanton is coming off a subpar 2024 season in which he batted .233/.298/.475 with a 115 OPS+, though, he still hit 27 home runs to go with 72 RBIs. He also posted a 55.7 percent hard-hit rate, the highest in three seasons.
Stanton stepped up for the Yankees in the postseason, especially in the American League Championship Series and in the Fall Classic. In the ALCS versus the Cleveland Guardians, Stanton hit four home runs and recorded seven RBIs to win that series’ MVP honors. In the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Stanton posted a .832 OPS.
A five-time All-Star, Stanton was traded by the Miami Marlins in 2017 to the Yankees. He signed a 13-year, $325 million contract with the Marlins in 2014, which includes a $15 million club option for the 2028 season — Stanton’s age 38 season.
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