Giancarlo Stanton looks to join Aaron Judge as another big-time slugger who will take a seat for this season’s Home Run Derby.
It looks like the MLB will have to find a someone other than Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge to win this year’s Home Run Derby. Good luck with that one.
Announced on Monday, Giancarlo Stanton will join teammate Aaron Judge on the sidelines for this season’s Home Run Derby competition. Earlier this season Judge told reporters that he was leaning towards not participating this season as the defending champion.
Aaron Judge and other stars have already turned down the HR Derby.
Is the event becoming the new Slam Dunk Contest? https://t.co/FuAWq8SZax pic.twitter.com/N4A0TJkFFG
— Bleacher Report MLB (@BR_MLB) June 22, 2018
Stanton sang a very similar tune when talking to the media on Monday, lobbing up an “I don’t think so,” when asked if he could be participating. “Don’t want to; I’ve done it plenty of times. Take a year off, take two years off, if I want,” Stanton told reporters.
Aaron Judge added, “This year we’ve got something special going. I kind of said I’m not going…and I want to stay healthy.”
It’s safe to say the struggles Aaron Judge at the end of last season after the HR Derby are influencing his current stance on participating in the 2018 festivity. While he was also dealing with shoulder soreness, for those who can remember, Judge’s second half from the end of July to August was of the most brutal stretches a young player could endure. Judge hit .230 to round out July last season and then hit a disastrous .185 in the month of August.
A combined .228 for the second half of 2017 is not something he wants to have to answer for again.
Giancarlo Stanton, in my opinion, fears a very similar issue to that of Judge’s a season ago. As Aaron Judge said, there’s something special going on here. Why ruin it with uppercut swings that will hamper them for the next two months? Because, then again, Stanton and his swing are in a tremendous place right now:
It’s July and Giancarlo Stanton leads the Yankees in hits. April was just a giant prank and we all fell for it
— Eric Hubbs (@BarstoolHubbs) July 8, 2018
Will he be chosen as one of the final All-Stars still remains to be seen for Giancarlo Stanton.
In a sense, it’s a very depressing scenario not to see these two sluggers duke it out pound for pound in the Derby, but understandably so, they have their eyes set on a bigger set of hardware. Let’s just hope Bryce Harper and others can carry the HR Derby as Judge and Stanton have done for the past two years.
