Yankees' Giancarlo Stanton says injuries are 'severe in both elbows,' hopes to avoid season-ending surgery

Fiifi Frimpong, New York Daily News on Mar 8, 2025

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK — Things aren’t looking too great for Giancarlo Stanton.

The Yankees slugger said Saturday his tendon injuries are “severe in both elbows,” which is a result from bat adjustments from last season, according to MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch. Stanton is unsure when he came resume baseball activities.

Stanton returned to Yankees camp with the expectation that he wouldn’t appear in any exhibition games before the season opener on March 27. He arrived in Tampa, Fla., after dealing with a personal matter in New York. During his time in New York, the slugger received two rounds of PRP injections to address the tennis elbow injuries.

A third round of injections is scheduled for Monday in New York, per the Yankees.

“Let’s finish the treatment and go from there,” Stanton said. “I absolutely hate this. I’m going to get back as soon as possible.”

Stanton’s tendon injuries have kept him sidelined since January. He mentioned he played through the pain in both elbows for most of the 2024 season, including the postseason.

Stanton is looking to pursue treatment that doesn’t require surgery, which he said would be season-ending, per MLB.com. The slugger said he currently struggles with grip and is “having trouble picking things up” in day-to-day life.

“It’s going to get to a point of pain tolerance and go from there,” Stanton said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a 100 percent healed thing and start up. It’ll be, get to a point and just deal with it, similar to last year.”

In terms of the rest of the distant future, Stanton replied “Ideally no” if he expects his elbows to bother him for the rest of his career, “but I’m in the line of work that you’ve got to use them at a high level every day, so who knows?”

Stanton on the sidelines — without a clear timetable for return — could increase Aaron Judge’s DH role in the 2025 season. The Yankees also have Ben Rice, Dom Smith, J.C. Escarra and Everson Pereira as DH options.

The injuries are beginning to pile up for the Yankees as they begin a quest back to the World Series in 2025. Ace Gerrit Cole is undergoing elbow testing and is “concerned” about what imaging might show in his elbow, per MLB.com. Rookie of the Year winner Luis Gil and infielder DJ LeMahieu are among key players set to begin the season on the injured list.

“It’s a long year,” Stanton said. “These [injuries] happen throughout the year. You don’t want them to happen off the bat, but you understand and consider they happen every year, unfortunately, to a different number of guys. It’s just the mentality of hold the fort down until everybody gets healthy.”

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