Is Giancarlo Stanton back back?

To make it subtle, Giancarlo Stanton’S stint with the New York Yankees did not exactly go according to plan. To say less, Stanton has collected less war in New York in eight years than Aaron Judge only in 2024. When the Yankees took over Stanton at the end of 2017, it was expected that he would be the basis of the team’s line for the next decade when he finished collecting his Hall of Fame case. Since a solid, as a mild underwhelming debut season in the Bronx, Stanton has, however, sustained a parade of injuries that has left him with only a single season of 120 games, and his exit speeds at the level have quickly become his most important offensive skill. Five hundred home runs, which once seemed like a disappointing last milestone for Stanton, increasingly seemed like the happy result.

Stanton’s health has remained a problem because he missed a large part of this season with a serious case of tennis elbow in both elbows. But the results he received when he is available have been from classic Marlins Vintage: A.313/.388/.663 Line with 17 home runs and 1.9 War in 51 games, with the war language its best count since 2021. Since 2021 it has still had the current speed of the judge a Flexor -Train.

So how did he do it? Instead of bringing about a revolution in his game, Stanton plays as the most stantonified version of himself. His average exit speed and the hard percentage are at their highest level ever, and his swivel percentage outside the zone is the lowest it has been in years. The attack angle on his swing has checked a few degrees, enough to give it an ideal attack angle for 65% of the time, an increase of 60% in 2024 and 57% in 2023. We have no bat tracking data further, but we have Doing Know that Stanton has a career-high speed of flyballs and a career-bear grounders.

Groundballs are not necessarily the worst in the world, although Stanton nowadays runs at about the same speed that George RR Martin completes novels. During the Statcast era, Stanton has a .271 Babip on grounders, 30 points better than the competition average in that period. As with most aspects of the game, hit baseball hard is a useful skill, and this is no different, because grounders have less than 95 km / h a .171 Babip, while those 95 mph or harder have a .387 Babip. Nevertheless, the stroke average of Stanton .271 is almost matched on balls in the game by a .265 home run average on aerial balls in the game, and home runs are a lot better!

I wrote about 18 months ago about Stanton’s Hall of Fame case, and before 2024 and the first half of 2025 it didn’t seem like the story became sunnier. At that time I recorded Stantons projected career war, home runs and hits after every season of his career. Here is an update, with 2024 added:

The zip projects are currently more enthusiastic about Stanton than for a while. His WRC+ projection of the residual season is 127 in the simpler model that is updated daily, and 134 in the most robust version of the model. Of course this gives his projections a bump about what he had before:

Sevently more home runs (83 in these projections, and an extra four for the rest of 2025) puts him on 533 for his career, giving him an important permission about the 500 Home Run Milestone and to see him a little closer to 2,000 hits. That is good for the Yankees and good for Stanton’s opportunities to make the Hall of Fame. I can’t talk about how other writers think about Stanton, but the version that we see in 2025 actually makes me excited to see him haunting 500 home runs. I have the same love for beautiful round figures that do most baseball fans, but for me are milestones far More fascinating if a player is actually good at the end of the chase. Miguel Cabrera Is an easy Hall of Fame voice for me, but I have little pleasure from his 500th Homer or 3000th hit because the performance was him – to be extremely bone – a really bad major league baseball player for the majority of a decade.

For the same reason, the 2022-24 version of Stanton that makes it up to 500 homers, is not something that I give too much to, nor would it be more inclined to check his box on a Hall of Fame Stemnet than when he was retired after 2021 or 2022. Eloy Jiménez or JD Davis Then a great all time.

But this Stanton, who gets many balls in the air and hopefully will hit more in the .250-.260 range instead of .200, is a much more attractive player. However, the hope is that he found his inner Giancarlo, he no longer loses it. The 2025 version of Stanton is someone who looks Cooperstown-bound instead of Cooperstown-Meh, and that is enough to let me turn to the Yankees game to see him play.