From the moment they designated DJ LeMahieu for assignment and moved Jazz Chisholm Jr. back to second base, the question became when and not if the Yankees would acquire a true starter at the hot corner. Three weeks later, the Yankees have their new third baseman of the present and near-future, acquiring Ryan McMahon from the Rockies for minor league pitching prospects Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz.
Herring (LHP) was the Yankees' No. 8 prospect per @MLBPipeline. Grosz (RHP) was No. 21. https://t.co/8Af3DE7P5I
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) July 25, 2025AD
In McMahon, the Yankees are getting a tried and true MLB starter at the hot corner. He’s been the model of availability with over 150 games played in each of the last four seasons, performing at a roughly league-average starter level over that span. He’s always been slightly below average with the bat overall but he’s got some lefty pull-side pop and makes up for the offensive shortcomings with one of the best third base gloves in the game, accruing the second-most Defensive Runs Saves and Statcast Outs Above Average at the position since the start of 2021.
He certainly offers an upgrade with the bat over the two incumbents on the roster, Oswald Peraza running a 25 wRC+ on the year an Jorbit Vivas scarcely better at 54, though it is interesting to note that McMahon’s overall offensive production (88 wRC+) is worse than that of LeMahieu (95 wRC+), whom the Yankees released on July 9th. McMahon likely offers higher upside with the bat than LeMahieu, a man seven years his senior, but it’s not a given that his production will take off post-trade given his ghastly road splits (64 wRC+) and performance against lefties (58 wRC+).
In effect, the Yankees are getting a decent bump on offense relative to their in-house options for third, plus a boost on defense compared to everyone who has taken reps at the hot corner for them this year. Fans can rejoice in not having to see Peraza and Vivas start another game at third. Peraza becomes the full-time utility infielder off the bench while Vivas seems ticketed for an option to the minor leagues. Peraza has indicated at this point that he will never fulfill his prospect pedigree and become a viable MLB starter, and given the options ahead of and behind him on the organizational depth chart, his days in the organization could be numbered.
McMahon’s addition stands in stark contrast to the marquee option they could have pursued for third, Eugenio Suárez. According to reports, the Yankees were aggressively pursing the NL home run leader, who no doubt represents the crown jewel of the MLB Trade Deadline on the position player side. McMahon’s acquisition brings a swift end to the Yankees’ courtship of the Diamondbacks third baseman, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given Joel Sherman’s report that the team was prioritizing starting pitching over a pursuit of Suárez.
Arizona is said to be pursuing near-MLB-ready starting pitching at the deadline, and given the number of suitors for Suárez, it likely would have required at least one of New York’s top prospects including Cam Schlittler, Will Warren, Carlos Lagrange, Ben Hess, or Bryce Cunningham. There have also been some rumblings about how Suárez’s batted ball profile would suffer from the more cavernous left field of Yankee Stadium as well as worries over his defense. All of this probably led the Yankees to deem the asking price for a pure rental in Suárez as too expensive, which helps explain why they pivoted to the less impactful McMahon. They managed to retain all their top prospect arms — Herrin and Grosz clocked in as the organization’s eighth and 21st-ranked prospects according to MLB Pipeline — while securing multiple years of control at the hot corner.
Which brings us to the question of payroll. The Yankees are picking up all of the remaining money on the backloaded six-year, $70 million extension McMahon signed prior to the start of the 2022 season — roughly $4.5 million for the rest of 2025 plus $16 million in each of the 2026 and 2027 seasons. When acquiring a player on a guaranteed contract, the new average annual value (AAV) used toward the luxury tax calculation takes the remaining money divided by the remaining term. This equates to a roughly $15.4 million hit to the Yankees Competitive Balance Tax (CBT) number according to FanGraphs’ RosterResource function ($36.5 million/2.37 years ~ $15.4 million AAV).
However, where things get a little hazy is how MLB calculates the CBT hit for a player traded mid-season. To the best of my understanding, the amount counted toward the Yankees’ 2025 payroll is the prorated amount of the recalculated AAV number. Doing the math, $15.4 million multiplied by (60 games left/162 games overall) equals $15.4 million x 0.37 = $5.7 million.
That $5.7 million addition to this year’s CBT number has a not insignificant implication on what further business the Yankees can do before the deadline. Ownership has repeatedly voiced a distaste for exceeding the fourth and most penalizing CBT threshold — set at $301 million for 2025 — and though they will receive significant CBT relief due to Gerrit Cole’s season-ending Tommy John surgery, even a $5.7 million addition to the payroll would bring them further above that final threshold, a number they already exceed according to RosterResource. Looking beyond 2025, paying two seasons at $16 million a year for a glove-first third baseman with “untapped offensive upside” that may be harder to unleash for a player on the wrong side of 30 may not be the most prudent allocation of funds, but it’s clear the focus is on the present.
(As a fascinating aside, between McMahon and LeMahieu, the Yankees are paying a pair of former Rockies infield teammates a combined $66.5 million between the start of this season and the end of 2027)
With two more years of team control beyond this year, the Yankees have three-quarters of their starting infield locked up through the end of next season including Anthony Volpe and Jazz Chisholm Jr. This allows them greater patience with the development of top infield prospects George Lombard Jr. and Roc Riggio (though continued regression from Volpe may reopen this discussion). What’s more, in leaving the upper echelon of their farm system untouched, the Yankees still possess the prospect capital to make a bigger splash in an area of need — namely the starting rotation and the bullpen.
McMahon is far from the splashiest addition the Yankees could have made at third — in fact he’s probably the most boring of the options they were considering. However, he still upgrades the position while more importantly keeping the rest of the Yankees’ powder dry for future additions. On the other hand, the savings in prospect capital may be outweighed by the opportunity cost of not acquiring an actual needle-mover in Suárez, and the $16 million McMahon is owed in 2026 and 2027 could concretely limit their flexibility to pursue other targets in upcoming off-seasons. In this sense, McMahon is a puzzling yet eminently predictable move by the front office, one who will hopefully help this year’s club without jeopardizing future competitiveness.
More from pinstripealley.com:
- Yankees acquire Ryan McMahon from Rockies for two prospects
- The Spencer Jones conundrum
- Yankees 2025 draft tracker: 18 of 19 draftees signed
- Yankees Trade Deadline Coverage
- The hitting genius of Aaron Judge
- Pinstripe Alley’s Top 100 Yankees
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