By James Peacock

There have been few players in the history of the New York Yankees quite like Giancarlo Stanton. He is the only other player outside of Aaron Judge who, when things are going right for him, inspires an almost Ruth-ian aura. However, he is also a player who, when things are not going right for him, can almost look like he’s never swung a baseball bat before.

Unfortunately, he is currently in the middle of one of those catastrophic slumps, on par with the very worst that he’s had in his long career. In the absence of Aaron Judge, there is a massive void that fans had hoped Giancarlo could help to fill, but this has not been the case. On the season, though he missed two months with injury, Stanton is slashing .187/.243/.393, with six homeruns in 29 games. His OPS currently stands at .636 which is the worst of his career by over 120 points, just behind last season’s mark of .759.

To further complicate matters, he is 33 years old, has played in 477 of 785 possible games in his time with the Yankees (60.76%), hardly plays the outfield anymore, and is owed more than $100 million over the next 5 seasons. Stanton signed a 13 year, $325 million contract with the Miami Marlins in 2014.

All of this begs the question: What, if anything, can the Yankees do about Giancarlo Stanton?

The length and money involved in his contract mean the Yankees couldn’t just cut ties with him (which they shouldn’t do anyway). Also, for all of Giancarlo’s struggles, it’s hard to imagine the Yankees would get anything close to his value in a potential trade and, more importantly, Stanton has a no-trade clause built into his contract, meaning he must sign off on whatever team an organization was trying to trade him to.

What would I do about Giancarlo Stanton? A couple of things.

First, I would ask that he, his personal trainers and the Yankees training staff have a moment of soul-searching regarding his routine. Stanton looks like he was chiseled out of stone, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a player of such physical prowess get injured so often in such (seemingly) innocuous ways, like running out a double. Maybe it’s simple bad luck, maybe not, but I think that further inspection is required.

Second, I would insist that he play the outfield more often than he has. It’s easy to forget that Stanton has played most of his career in the DH-less version of the National League, meaning that he is an outfielder by trade. At his slightly advanced age, he’s not quite as fleet-of-foot as he used to be out there, but history (and his own words) would suggest that he tends to be a better hitter when he’s also playing the outfield.

Third, I would insist on patience from the fanbase. We as fans must not lose sight of context, and must have memories longer than the past few weeks. Stanton does get injured more often than we would like, but his track record shows that when he plays, he is more productive than not, current cold-streak aside. He will get it together and, should the Yankees make the playoffs, there is perhaps not a better playoff performer on the entire team than “Big G:”

Patience (with Giancarlo Stanton), Yankee fans, may once again prove to be a virtue.