As Yankees Enter Postseason, Giancarlo Stanton’s Climb Up The Home Run List Gets Interesting

After the Yankees headed into the offseason following the disappointment of handing Game 5 of the World Series to the Dodgers, Giancarlo Stanton was at 429 homers.

It was a number putting him midway between Mike Piazza and Cal Ripken Jr. for 52nd on the all-time list when he connected of Corbin Burnes in a game against Baltimore on Sept. 26, 2024.

Elbow problems delated Stanton’s climb up the all-time list until June 16 but since returning the slugger is making an interesting ascent up the list, making some wonder about his Hall of Fame case.

Stanton tied Ripken on July 8 by going deep against Logan Gilbert and then surpassed the Iron Man shortstop July 10 with a memorable homer. In a game the Yankees were no-hit into the eighth by Bryan Woo, he batted against Matt Brash and hit a three-run homer for his first career pinch hit homer.

Stanton took more pinch hits at-bats than usual since the Yankees are managing his health for moments that they hope look like last year when he hit seven homers in 14 postseason games.

Stanton tied Andruw Jones and Juan Gonzalez at 434 by taking Kevin Gausman deep in one of the six losses in Toronto on July 21 that are the reason why the Yankees lose the tiebreaker. He tied Carlos Beltran with his 435th homer against Taijuan Walker on July 25 in an ugly loss to the Phillies.

Matching Andre Dawson with the 438th occurred in the disastrous weekend in Miami and matching Paul Konerko with his 439th homer occurred Aug. 4 in Texas towards the end of the two-month downturn and malaise by the Yankees.

Nobody really noticed because the Yankees were mired in the funk that knocked them from the division lead, but things accelerated in Stanton’s climb in the opening stages of the ascent.

Matching Jason Giambi with his 440th occurred Aug. 11 against Minnesota’s Zebby Matthews. Passing Giambi occurred the following night against Thomas Hatch when the Yankees won the first two games from the Twins before running into Joe Ryan.

It took another week for Stanton to homer again, and he moved past Dave Kingman with homers number 442 and 443 Aug. 19 against the Rays when the Yankees hit nine homers in a 13-3 rout.

Next was Jeff Bagwell and Vladimir Guerrero Sr. at 449 and he quickly got there by hitting five between Aug. 23 and Sept. 11, with the latter occurring on the same night Aaron Judge matched Joe DiMaggio for fourth on the Yankees’ all-time list.

The next round number was 450 and he did so against Tomoyuki Sugano in Baltimore on Sept. 20. That made Stanton one of 41 players to reach the 450-homer milestone.

“It’s a cool round number,” Stanton said last week. “It’s cool to see the names I’m catching and tying and going above.

Of those with 450, 26 are in the Hall of Fame. Another two (Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols are not eligible just yet) and nine are not in because of links to various performance enhancing drug issues. Two are not in because they were sluggers and not necessarily Hall of Famers in Adam Dunn and Carlos Delgado, though Delgado’s career, which was 280 with 473 homers is better than Dunn’s .237 clip with 462 homers.

Stanton has passed Carl Yastzemski and next is Jose Canseco and Adam Dunn at 462 homers. When he gets to 475, that will make him the 34th to do so and the only non-Hall of Famers beside Pujols and Cabrera (not eligible yet) are those with links and to possible performance-enhancing drug usage.

Last season as Stanton was approaching Billy Williams and Mike Piazza, manager Aaron Boone thought he had four Hall of Famers on his roster. He said about Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole, Juan Soto and Stanton.

With Stanton, the strike against him is a .258 career batting average. He was a .268 hitter in eight seasons with the Marlins and batted .266 in his first season with the Yankees in 2018 when he hit 38 homers and drove in 100 runs.

After 2018, Stanton was frequently injured missing 144 games in 2019 and 37 in the pandemic 2020-season. In 2021, the Yankees reached the wild-card game on the final day of the season and Stanton rebounded by hitting .273 with 35 homers and 78 RBIs but over the next three seasons he missed a combined 161 games and batted .212.

Without the low averages between 2022 and 2024, Stanton is a .267 hitter but those low numbers happened and Stanton is trying to make up the lost ground with an impressive half season where his homer rate of 10.2 at-bats is on par with his rate in 2017 when he won the MVP with 59 homers in 159 games for the Marlins.

“He just carries so much respect from all of us; who he is, the way he goes about things in his unique way,” Boone said last week.