Yankees' Brian Cashman: Giancarlo Stanton Surgery on Elbow Injury Can't Be Ruled Out

New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton is rejoining the team this weekend after missing spring training with an elbow injury, but he's not closer to returning to the field.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman told reporters on Thursday that surgery remains on the table for Stanton, though the team is still evaluating its options.

"It’d be a last resort. ... I can’t rule out a surgery, but I know it’s not recommended on the front end of this thing," Cashman said. "But obviously if you have a number of different failed attempts, then you start looking at different ways of intervention."

Cashman said that Stanton received a second round of PRP injections in both elbows before returning to the team. When asked why he didn't receive the injections earlier in the offseason, Cashman said that the issues didn't arise until about three weeks before camp when he started swinging a bat.

"Ultimately, he was dealing with it at the end of last year and obviously thought we were in a good place and I think he was feeling in a good place," Cashman said. "But then it reared its ugly head about three weeks before camp, is my understanding, so now we’re dealing with it."

Stanton discussed the injury before the team's first full-squad workout last month, explaining that he's dealing with painful tendinitis in both elbows and he was playing through the injuries for much of the 2024 season as the Yankees made their first World Series appearance since 2009.

"The pain was very high in general," Stanton said at the time. "Tennis elbow or however they call it is tears in tendon, so it's not when did it feel good, when did it feel bad. There's always the pain level there, and you got to deal with that. So, yeah, it's just the wisest point to give time right now."

Despite the injuries, Stanton had a respectable season with 25 home runs and 72 RBI and upped his play during the postseason, hitting .273 with seven homers and 16 RBI.

It's already expected that Stanton will begin the season on the IL. The Yankees will need him back at full strength to make another deep playoff run this year.