Slowest MLB players in 2023: Where Yankees' Giancarlo Stanton ranks among baseball's most sluggish baserunners

The good news for the Yankees is that slugger Giancarlo Stanton is back on the field and starting to get into a rhythm at the plate. The bad news? He doesn't look very mobile — to say the least.

Stanton has found himself on the basepaths more as his bat heats up, but fans are noticing how labored he looks while running. His lack of speed became more than just an underlying story on Saturday, when he was tagged out by a healthy margin while trying to score against the Astros.

Here's video of his scoring attempt:

Watching Giancarlo Stanton run is something pic.twitter.com/umUpC2AxHZ

— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) August 5, 2023

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Despite Stanton's lack of mobility, Yankees manager Aaron Boone insists he's healthy: The 33-year-old former MVP missed more than six weeks with a hamstring injury early in the season, and he struggled to return to form at the plate until the All-Star break passed.

As the Yankees try to climb back into the postseason picture, Stanton's ineffectiveness on the basepaths could become a factor. Here's the data on Stanton's lack of speed on the basepaths, including where he ranks among all players this season:

How slow is Giancarlo Stanton?

According to data from Baseball Savant, Stanton's sprint speed is 24.5 feet per second, which ranks as the 12th-slowest mark among all players with 50 or more competitive runs in 2023.

For comparison, Elly De La Cruz leads the league in sprint speed at 30.4 feet per second. Seven players with at least 50 competitive runs, including Bobby Witt Jr. and Corbin Carroll, have a sprint speed of 30 feet per second or more.

From home plate to first base, the numbers are even worse for Stanton: He ranks 328th out of 333 players, at an average of 5.01 seconds. He is ahead of four catchers and 40-year-old Miguel Cabrera.

Even so, Stanton isn't the slowest player on the Yankees — by a hair. Catcher Jose Trevino, whose sprint speed of 24.4 feet per second, ranks just behind Stanton. Anthony Rizzo is just ahead of Stanton and Trevino, at 24.6 feet per second.

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Slowest MLB players in 2023

Stanton isn't the slowest player in baseball, but there are some caveats to that. Six of the 11 players who rank behind Stanton are catchers, who come with totally different expectations when it comes to speed.

Data from the 2023 season also includes Stanton's sprint speed from games before his hamstring injury (though the injury occurred about two weeks into the regular season).

Among players with 50 or more competitive runs this season, the only non-catchers slower than Stanton are Wilmer Flores, Daniel Vogelbach, Jesse Winker, Rowdy Tellez and Miguel Cabrera. Both Vogelbach and Tellez are 25 pounds heavier than Stanton, while Cabrera, again, is 40 years old.

As for Flores and Winker, they just happen to be exceptionally slow runners compared to the rest of the league.

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Here's a complete look at 2023's 15 slowest MLB players — with at least 50 competitive runs — per Baseball Savant:

And here's a closer look at the 10 slowest players from home plate to first base.