Yankee slugger, Giancarlo Stanton, got hit in the face by a fastball in 2014

And it changed his biomechanics and career ever since.

If you like baseball you've probably heard of Giancarlo Stanton. The massive 6'6" slugger known for his homerun power.

I honestly hadn’t heard of him till someone in our community recently brought him to my attention and thought it would make for a good story.

You see Stanton was drilled in the face with a 88-mph fastball in 2014. And it shattered numerous teeth thereby requiring the need for major dental work.

And since then he’s been a lot slower and injury prone.

Were dental biomechanics at play here? Let’s explore.

Who is Giancarlo Stanton?

Giancarlo Stanton is one of the most physically imposing players to ever step into a batter's box. At 6'6" and 245 pounds, he's built like a linebacker but swings a bat like a precision instrument when he's healthy.

His career numbers speak for themselves. He's hit 429 home runs through 2024, won the 2017 National League MVP award, and led the league in home runs twice. In 2017 alone, he crushed 59 homers - the most in the majors since Barry Bonds hit 73 in 2001.

But what Stanton was really known for wasn't just the number of home runs, but the sheer violence with which he hit them. This guy could make contact and send a baseball 450+ feet like it was nothing. His exit velocities were consistently among the highest in baseball, routinely hitting balls at 115+ mph off the bat.

And early in his career he was also known for his surprisingly decent speed for such a big man. Not fast by any means, but certainly not the lumbering giant he would later become. In his prime, he could steal the occasional base and wasn't a liability on the basepaths.

The guy was basically a perfect physical specimen built for baseball. Which makes what happened next even more telling.

His early career (pre-2014)

Before 2014, Stanton was establishing himself as one of the premier power hitters in the game, but he was also relatively durable. Sure, he had the occasional injury but nothing like the chronic issues that would plague him later.

From 2010 to 2013, he played in at least 123 games each season. Not exactly an iron man, but solid availability for a power hitter. His body seemed to hold up reasonably well to the demands of a 162-game season.

What's interesting is that during this period, Stanton actually had what you'd call average speed for a big man. His sprint speed was measured around 26-27 feet per second in those early years - not great, but respectable for someone his size.

His swing mechanics were also notably more fluid. If you watch tapes of him from 2012-2013, there's a smoothness to his swing that just isn't there anymore.

In 2014 he was hit in the face with a pitch

September 11, 2014. Marlins vs. Brewers. Milwaukee's Mike Fiers threw an 88-mph fastball that got away from him.

The ball caught Stanton directly in the face.

Not a glancing blow. Not off the helmet. Right in the face.

The damage was immediate and severe. Stanton suffered multiple facial fractures, dental damage, and a laceration that required stitches. But the part that I think is most relevant to what happened afterward? The extensive damage to his teeth.

Stanton described it as having damaged five teeth - one completely knocked out, another half-chipped, and the rest around 30% damaged. He said his mouth was full of blood and “chunks of teeth,” and he had to have several stitches where the teeth had broken through his skin.

Stanton underwent dental procedures in the months following the injury, which included an implant and a bunch of crowns as well as veneers.

Since then he's been injury prone

Here's where the pattern becomes pretty convincing. After 2014, Stanton turned into a completely different player from a health and performance standpoint.

The injuries started piling up almost immediately. Groin strains, hamstring pulls, quad issues, knee problems, back problems - all kinds of stuff. From 2015 onward, he's played more than 150 games in a season exactly once.

Also his sprint speed dropped from around 26-27 feet per second to closer to 24-25 feet per second - a big decline for a professional athlete.

His running form also changed dramatically. Watch him run the bases now compared to 2013. He looks like he's fighting his own body with every step… the fluidity is gone.

What I think happened

I’m pretty sure that when the dentists ‘fixed’ him in 2014 they messed up the natural ‘lingual bite’ that he would have had.

You see when your head tilts downwards the jaw should roll forward into ‘protrusion’ as you see above. And that position should be supported by the cusps of the teeth.

When you tilt your head up the jaw should move back into ‘retrusion’ and this should also be supported by the cusps of the teeth.

When dentists recreate a bite with crowns and implants as they did with Giancarlo in 2014… they pretty much never account for this protrusion and retrusion position. They fit the teeth together into an occlusion that only accounts for a single ‘rest’ position of the jaw.

And when you screw up these other jaw positions… my direct experience from several years of experimenting on myself between 2014-17 is that this has a collapsing effect on the skull and body.

I explain this here:

Indexed splints and the magical "perfect jaw position"

And so basically Giancarlo’s spine has been twisting and compensating little by little ever since they recreated his bite in 2014.

Closing thoughts

Cases like Giancarlo are for me some of the saddest. Because they didn’t go for the dental work for aesthetic reasons.

It wasn’t some chase for a Hollywood smile… rather he was hit with an injury that necessitated it.

And so he relied on the system to fix him… but instead the system screwed him.

However I’m impressed with his determination. He’s slowed down a lot in this last decade of his career but he has not lost relevance.

In this 2025 season even though he started out on the injured list with epicondylitis he returned to action and has been hitting quite well. As well as contributing to his team in other ways through his leadership.

He is showing the grit of a person that doesn’t allow biomechanical collapse stop them. Through sheer force of will he is forcing his body to continue on and perform… a bit like my story on Larry Bird.

So I commend him.

And of course I hope someone tells him to wear a mouthguard to sleep. lol