At the 2025 Trade Deadline, one of the Yankees’ primary acquisitions was for a defense-first third baseman. Ryan McMahon, who had spent the past nine seasons with the Colorado Rockies, was known as one of the game’s finest defenders at the hot corner, one that could hit enough to get by in the majors, culminating in his first All-Star selection in 2024.
I will put my hand up: I liked adding RyMac to the fold. His glove gave him a solid floor, and he had enough pop with the bat to float around league-average
and contribute a big hit now and then. Now, a good chunk into his first full season in the Bronx, it’s clear that something is not working for McMahon at the plate. He’s not putting the ball in play with much authority, and the basepaths are proving difficult to reach in 2026. He was never a bat-first guy, but at third base, at least some pop at the plate is expected, and it simply isn’t coming for the Yankees.
It took McMahon 17 games to get his first extra-base hit of the season, which in all fairness, was a clutch homer against the Royals. The pressure to produce that sort of hit is hammered home by Michael Kay’s “Ohhhh, did he need that!”
The issue arises in the fact that this hit did not really open the floodgates for McMahon, as he’s only amassed a handful of extra-base hits in his 137 plate appearances to this point. Now, all homers or doubles count the same, but you’ll notice that this homer wasn’t exactly a no-doubter. It was a wall-scraper the other way into left field. Unfortunately for McMahon this season, that seems to be all that he can buy.
Don’t mistake this chart for for Isaac Paredes’, these are all of Ryan McMahon’s extra-base hits this season — three doubles and four homers. Notably, all but one of these hits are to the opposite field, and rather extremely so. Not only has it been difficult for the Yankee third baseman to turn up the slug, but when he does, he’s not exactly doing himself any favors with a spray chart like this.
A pulled fly ball is the best category of hit a batter can ask for, something that McMahon cannot seem to find in his bat for 2026, and it’s clearly reflecting in his numbers. His 62 wRC+ would be an easy career worst since becoming a gular in 2018, as he’s reaching base at a miniscule .259 clip, strikes out 30 percent of the time, and is walking less than he ever has in his career. 2026 has been a rough go for McMahon at the plate, and his lack of production at the plate has necessitated the need for improvement at the hot corner for New York. Manager Aaron Boone hasn’t hesitated to play righty platoon partner Amed Rosario against same-handed pitching on occasion during McMahon’s deeper slumps.
For McMahon specifically, the production we’re seeing is a particular downgrade for him. Although his premier attributes have never come with the bat, the Yankees can and should reasonably expect a little pop from their third baseman. Instead of the guy who’s posted five consecutive 20-homer seasons, the Yankees have seen this version of McMahon. His production is substandard for anywhere on the diamond, but when considering the position he occupies, and the fact that he has been a consistent contributor for the better part of a decade, the trend becomes all the more troubling.
McMahon still hits the ball fairly hard (80th percentile in average exit velocity), and does so at a good rate (81st percentile hard-hit rate). But it’s clear that this sort of output is not all created equal, as his extra-base hits are fine in isolation, but they become part of a larger, more worrisome trend in the big picture. A full rebound with the bat feels less and less likely as time goes on, but nothing is out of question, as McMahon at least has a fine track record to back it up. But, as things stand, 2026 has been full of far more questions than answers for McMahon and the Yankees.
