Beneath this cynical, empirically motivated exterior, I’m actually a big softie. That’s why I love it when an old man turns back the clock and rediscovers magic for the last time. Nearly a decade ago, Giancarlo Stanton was the proto-Aaron Judge: a player who was bigger and stronger than any outfielder we’d ever seen, and who was able to hit the ball much harder than anyone in the league.

Stanton came of age the moment Statcast made his exit velocity public, though his 2017 season — the height of his stardom — was impressive enough because of the metrics Henry Chadwick scribbled on a cave wall 15,000 years ago. Those numbers: 59 home runs, 123 runs scored, 132 RBI, a .631 slugging percentage. No wonder Stanton was named National League MVP that year.

And we all know what happened next. The trade to New York – or rather, given the Marlins’ proclivities at the time, Stanton’s record-breaking trade contract to New York. The Yankees are no strangers to powerhouse duos in the middle of the lineup, but the Stanton-Judge Neo-Bash Brothers act never got a full hearing. Judge was hampered by injury in 2018 and Stanton played just 41 games combined in 2019 and 2020 thanks to injuries to his biceps, shoulder, knee, quadriceps and hamstring.

By the time he played his next full season in 2021, Stanton was 31 years old and beginning to break down. He was a good player that year – 35 home runs, a 138 wRC+, 3.0 WAR – but not the franchise icon he had been in Miami. In the three seasons since, it has been more of the same. Age progresses, that gargantuan body slows, and nagging injuries gnaw at him like eroding desert sand on the Great Sphinx.

What is Stanton now? Over the past three seasons, he has averaged 27 home runs in 108 games per year. He’s as distinctive a swinger as Joey Votto, and he’s always posted a strikeout rate to match his raw power. But now the walk rate is in the single digits and the strikeout rate is up more than 30%. This season, Stanton’s sprint speed was in the third percentile, and if he didn’t have a glove, we’d never know because he hasn’t played an inning in the outfield since September 2023.

Stanton is all bat and nothing but bat at this point in his career. Not wanting to be rude, the results leave a lot to be desired. Over the past three seasons, Stanton has hit .212/.291/.454, which is a wRC+ of 106. That’s hardly Albert Pujols territory at the end of his career, but also, these Yankees aren’t those angels. They would want more from a full-time DH making $32 million this year.

But even now, there is one thing Stanton can do. A month shy of turning 35, with nearly 7,000 Major League appearances under his belt and an injury history that sounds like the lyrics to “Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes,” Stanton can still swing a baseball bat harder than anyone. .

According to Baseball Savant’s bat tracking scoreboard, Stanton’s average bat speed on competitive swings this year was 81.2 miles per hour. That’s not only the highest mark in baseball, it’s the highest by a huge margin. The gap between Stanton and second-place Oneil Cruz is larger than the gap between Cruz and 11th-place Christopher Morel.

The impact of that skill is, so to speak, enormous.

Stanton won ALCS MVP on the strength of just four hits in the entire series. But all four were home runs. In nine postseason games, Stanton has ten hits: five home runs, two doubles and three singles. That’s good enough for a .294 batting average – good by almost anyone’s standards, but not remarkable in itself. For example, Brayan Rocchio hit .333 this postseason, and everyone will have completely forgotten about it by Thanksgiving.

What makes Stanton special – what has always made him special – is his ability to get the most out of his contact. Of Stanton’s 10 hits, the softest came off the ground at 96.4 miles per hour. Six of his hits had exit velocities in the 110s. No other team, including the non-Stanton Yankees, has more hits with such high exit velocities this postseason. Among hitters with at least 20 balls in play this postseason, Stanton is second in slugging percentage on contact, first in xSLG and second in xwOBACON.

And while traditionalists may not love Stanton’s straight-three style, no one can accuse him of not being a timely hitter this postseason. Stanton drove in at least one run with eight of those ten total hits. Four of those RBI hits broke a tie; a fifth tied the Yankees in a game they had trailed since the second inning. Is that a repeatable skill? Not really. But you win ALCS MVP by making your hits count.

Baseball fans tend to have a great appreciation for history and a penchant for schmaltz and nostalgia. But the sport itself is merciless and unsentimental. One day you’ll be one of the best hitters in baseball, on your way to hitting 600 or even 700 home runs before all is said and done. The next minute you’re an afterthought.

But sometimes players like Stanton get reprieves. Actually, a lot of big hitters do that. Ted Williams had one last run at .400 at age 38. Pujols got his farewell tour. Votto reinvented himself for a 36-home run campaign at age 37 after looking cooked years earlier. Is Stanton doing the same now?

Or is this just a reminder of what has always been there? The game has changed dramatically over the past fifteen years, and so has Stanton himself. It’s easy to forget that – when you put aside the contract, the injuries and the series of previous disappointments, and being completely overshadowed by Judge and Soto – this man was born to hit the stuffing out of a baseball. He’s always been able to do that. And as long as pitchers hang sliders and leave fastballs in the zone, he always will.