Giancarlo Stanton and DJ LeMahieu injuries hurting Yankees before season starts
The Yankees' DJ LeMahieu pops up during an at-bat in a spring training game against the Houston Astros at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla., on March 1. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
FORT MYERS, Fla.
It’s not so much that the Yankees trusted Giancarlo Stanton and DJ LeMahieu to be impactful players for them in 2025. How could anyone believe two rapidly aging players as frequently dinged-up as they have been suddenly would outperform their lengthy medical resumes?
No, the problem is that the Yankees are contractually beholden to the fading dream of an inexplicably fragile former MVP and a hobbled two-time batting champion. Hal Steinbrenner still owes Stanton a guaranteed $96 million through 2027 — fortunately, the Marlins are chipping in $30 million of that sum — and LeMahieu is collecting a total of $30 million over this season and next.
Those are big numbers. Too big to swallow, even if any rationally thinking general manager knows deep down that these are the kind of players that can’t be relied on when mounting a defense of the Yankees’ American League crown. But as long as they’re occupying a significant chunk of the $305 million payroll, it also becomes difficult to press Steinbrenner for more cash to cover for these glaring red flags.
Which is why Brian Cashman struck his usual pose Thursday morning, wearing the same pained expression in revealing that yes, Stanton and LeMahieu are as messed up as everyone figured they were — perhaps even more so. Given that nobody expects either one to be healthy on a consistent basis anyway, this wasn’t shocking news.
As a quick aside, the Luis Gil update pretty much went as expected. A six-week shutdown, with another spring training ramp-up tacked on, gets you to Cashman’s three-month projection (best-case scenario, of course). More or less, the Yankees have coverage for the ailing Rookie of the Year (Marcus Stroman, Will Warren, Carlos Carrasco), so if they could cruise without Gerrit Cole a year ago, they’ll get over Gil’s absence.
The Stanton/LeMahieu dynamic, however, is considerably more troubling because of the thin options behind them. And in Stanton’s case, his double-dose of tennis elbow presents a murky medical conundrum.
First off, Cashman said Thursday that the Yankees didn’t realize how much Stanton was hurting until about three weeks before the start of spring training. They thought he had survived the worst after playing through the condition (and excelling) during the team’s World Series run, but somehow, after a winter off, “it reared its ugly head,” Cashman said.
For whatever reason, the Yankees have some history of similar February surprises, with players showing up in Tampa a bit more damaged than the last time they saw them. But Stanton — given their financial commitment and his medical charts — is a real head-scratcher. Not only was Cashman unable to provide any sort of rough timetable for the 35-year-old DH’s return, but the treatment plan feels like throwing darts: two rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections done in New York, where Stanton spent the past week because of what the team has described as “personal reasons.”
Are the PRP shots going to fix Stanton? Hard to say. Given that the tennis elbows apparently are a chronic problem, it’s probably more about just patching him up enough to get him into the batter’s box. And because Stanton hasn’t swung a bat for going on seven weeks now, they can’t have any concrete idea how this process is going to play out.
“Hopefully you get a positive resolution to it,” Cashman said. “Like most things — unless you’re dealing with a hamstring or something like that — you’re in a little bit of the unknown. You’re trying to treat everything conservatively and you hope for the best.”
We already knew Stanton was opening the season on the injured list, but Cashman also didn’t rule out surgery Thursday, a procedure that presumably would put him on the shelf until the All-Star break if they choose to go that route.
Stanton has averaged 108 games the past three seasons, but even that low bar is looking sketchy now, so the Yankees effectively have lost Stanton and Juan Soto from a lineup that scored the third-most runs (815) in the majors last season, behind the Diamondbacks (886) and Dodgers (842).
As for LeMahieu, who is sidelined with a Grade 1 or 2 calf strain, what else is there to say? At age 36, he can’t step on the field without hurting himself in some fashion, and this latest injury came in the second at-bat of his first Grapefruit League game while simply running out a pop-up.
A year ago, LeMahieu fouled a ball off his foot in spring training, and what initially was diagnosed as a bone bruise turned into a foot fracture that cost him the first two months of the season. He played only 67 games, but the Yankees actually considered him in the mix for the starting third-base job this year. Until now.
“There’s one less for the competition,” Cashman said. “Obviously, [Aaron] Boone will play with what he’s got and either an individual will emerge or he’ll multi-player it.”
So Oswaldo Cabrera remains the frontrunner, with Jazz Chisholm Jr. having switched over to be Anthony Volpe’s double-play partner, and that leaves the Yankees with some glaring deficiencies at two big offensive slots.
On Thursday, Cashman didn’t sound like a GM anxiously seeking outside candidates, just as Steinbrenner never seems all that enthusiastic about throwing money at emergencies. His one exception was green-lighting the spending spree that followed Soto’s defection to the Mets, but that put $760 million back in the owner’s pocket when his offer was spurned.
It’s getting to be time to think of Stanton and LeMahieu as sunk costs, and relying on them could sink the Yankees.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
