Yankees annual nightmare begins as Giancarlo Stanton injury news can't be good

Ifyou were wondering why we haven't seen much of Giancarlo Stanton at all since position players arrived to Yankees spring training, your hunch was correct! He's still dealing with pain in his elbows as a result of the tendinitis that's affected him dating back to 2024.

Two weeks ago, manager Aaron Boone told reporters that Stanton was a "full go" for spring training. On Thursday morning, we learned Stanton struggles to open a bag of chips when his tendinitis is acting up, per Randy Miller of NJ.com. How would that indicate he's a full go? He obviously can't play if he's struggling that badly with the pain.

Stanton told Miller that he still plans to play a full season, but that'll be hard for fans to believe since it hasn't happened since 2018 (and he's played in more than 114 games just once from 2019-2025). Not to mention, fans were never told the Yankees would be taking it slow with Stanton in spring training. That's not what "full go" means."

But now that we look back on the quote, it's all starting to make more sense.

“I think he’s doing great,” Boone said of Stanton. “I haven’t seen him yet. He’s one of the guys that will get here. But he’s had a good winter. He’s ready to roll.”

He's doing great, but you haven't seen him? Don't you have to see him on the day-to-day participating in baseball activities in order to determine that?

Probably should've raised a red flag there, but how could we? It was the start of spring training and everybody was excited for Yankees baseball. Fans were receiving positive injury news. What was the reason to express worry at that point?

Sadly, this is in lock-step with how the Yankees handle their injury situations. They constantly downplay until it reaches a boiling point. We're not quite there yet, but we haven't seen any videos of Stanton swinging a bat or taking batting practice. And he obviously hasn't appeared in a game yet. So what is anybody supposed to think?

Stanton offered some commentary last week that resonated with the fanbase in regard to his tenure with the Yankees and the organization's championship expectations. It had everybody feeling 2026 might be different, especially if he's dialed in and hoping to end his complicated time with the team by hoisting the Commissioner's Trophy.

It's obviously still a possibility, but once again the wind was taken out of everybody's sails after being sold something completely different regarding his lingering injury situation.