Giancarlo Stanton injury update, return timeline: Yankees slugger, eyeing 2025 debut, begins rehab stint

Giancarlo Stanton, the reigning ALCS MVP, is one step closer to rejoining the New York Yankees. Stanton will begin a minor-league rehab assignment with the Double-A Somerset Patriots on Tuesday, the team announced. He has not yet played this season due to what amounts to tennis elbow in both elbows.

Rehab assignments for position players are capped at 20 days, though Stanton can be activated at any time in that window. He has spent several weeks hitting against the high-velocity pitching machine and the last week or so taking live at-bats against minor leaguers at the team’s spring training complex in Florida. It’s possible his rehab stint will last only a few days.

Now 35, Stanton has played only 505 of 934 possible regular season games since 2019 due to a variety of injuries. Mostly lower body muscle pulls, but now his elbows are acting up. He’s said the injury dates back to last season and it is something he will have to manage moving forward. Surgery would have wiped out his entire season and he’s trying to avoid that.

Fitting Stanton into the lineup will take some creativity. The Yankees have rotated five players through first base, center field, left field, and DH this year: Cody Bellinger, Jasson Domínguez, Paul Goldschmidt, Trent Grisham, and Ben Rice (Aaron Judge also gets an occasional day at DH). Every game, one of Bellinger, Domínguez, Goldschmidt, Grisham, or Rice is out of the lineup.

Platoons figure to be in order. Domínguez, a switch-hitter, has struggled badly against lefties all year. The lefty-hitting Rice has a .235 on-base percentage against lefties. Goldschmidt is hitting .264/.297/.357 against righties. Manager Aaron Boone could platoon his players like this once Stanton returns:

Given the way they’ve handled him in the past, Stanton will not be an everyday player as soon as he returns, even at DH. He’ll likely start two straight games, then sit the third, something along those lines. Stanton has not played the field since September 2023 and there is no expectation he will in the future. The Yankees don’t even have him take fly balls in spring training anymore.

Another thing to watch: Stanton is the active MLB leader with 429 career home runs. Getting to 500 has long been considered a major benchmark and more often than not clears the way for induction to the Hall of Fame. Stanton is under contract through the 2027 season and he slugged 27 homers in only 114 games last year. The power is still there.

The Yankees enter play Tuesday atop the AL East with a 39-25 record. They have a four-game lead over the red-hot Tampa Bay Rays and Toronto Blue Jays. New York’s plus-95 run differential leads the American League.