Is Giancarlo Stanton the Anti-Ruth???

 

In the first inning yesterday, Jordan Montgomery missed his spot with a pitch, and Giancarlo Stanton nearly hit it out, hooking it just a foot left of the foul pole. 

Monty adjusted, put the next pitch where it was supposed to go, and Stanton obligingly grounded out to third. 

That was about it for the Yankees' offense. In the sixth, with the Yanks trailing by 2-0, Big G came up with Gleyber Torres on third and, apparently startled to see a teammate in such a position, flied out to right to end the inning. In the eighth, he came up with a man on again, the Yanks now down by 4-1—and lined to center for the third out.

Ballgame, with Giancarlo falling back to .195.  And the question must arise: 

Is Giancarlo Stanton—dollar for dollar—the worst player in major-league history? Is he...shudder...the Anti-Ruth???

My friend James, who is the most fervent Yankees fan in all of SoCal, insists that Stanton is not the main problem with today's Yankees, and never has been. And he's right. That individual is sitting in the general manager's office in the Bronx.

But Stanton is an enormous dead weight on this team. He takes up approximately one-ninth of the franchise's major-league-high payroll, and has for six years now. By the end of this season, the Yanks will have spent $167 million on Giancarlo, with at least another $98 million they are obligated to pay through 2028.

What they have got in return is someone who:

—Cannot (really) play the field.

—Cannot stay on the field (Almost 40 percent of all games missed.)

—Cannot—increasingly—hit.

There have always been moments in Stanton's Yankees career when he has gone on a tear and carried the team for a week or two, or even a month, the way that big sluggers—for all their streakiness—are expected to do.

No more. Not since he came apart again midseason 2022, finishing with career lows in batting average, OBP, and slugging—figures that he looks likely to underwhelm again this season.

There were hopes that he might be gearing up for a tear when he went on a relatively modest, 5-17 binge against Texas and Oakland, with 1 homer and 6 ribbies. But that sputtered out with one single in seven at-bats in St. Loo. 

Big G's power seems barely to exist anymore—just 7 home runs this season. He never did draw many walks for a power hitter, but he's now down to 9 in 35 games.  In other words, about once a week, he'll hit a homer, and maybe once or twice a week, he'll get a walk. 

That's it. And as usual, every attempt to accommodate Stanton's frailties seems counterproductive. Can he ever really get going if he needs to take every third or fourth game off?

IS he the anti-Ruth?

Well, you tell me. 

The Babe was also paid a fantastically high amount for his time—$80,000, or about $1.5-$5 million in today's money, depending on how you figure it. Plus plenty more with the Yanks' constant exhibition games during the season—but not nearly Stanton's $32 million a season.

Ruth, also like Stanton, joined what was already a pretty good Yankees team and took it to the stars. His arrival in 1920 jumpstarted an unrivaled, 45-year dynasty, including 7 pennants and 4 World Series wins over Ruth's time in town.

Stanton joined the 2018 Yankees, a good team he was expected to carry to the top—The Dynasty What Never Was. He's not responsible, of course, for everybody on that team not named Aaron Judge flopping miserably. 

But Stanton didn't carry anyone anywhere. Instead, year after year, he blocks the team's flexibility, and puts much of its ample payroll in deep freeze. He present but absent—part and parcel of the Yankees becoming just another ball club, or the exact opposite of what George Herman "Babe" Ruth did for them.

Let's face it. Stanton—pictured above adjusting his arm pads to cover the "666" tattooed there—is the anti-Ruth. Start preparing for the Rapture.