Yankees 2025 Report Cards: Ryan McMahon

The Yankees opened the 2025 season with what one might call a concept of a plan at third base. Their Opening Day third baseman was Oswaldo Cabrera; once Cabrera went down for the year with a grisly leg injury, the scrambling began. Jazz Chisholm Jr. was pulled back off his native second base to man the hot corner, as were a gaggle of players who simply looked overmatched: Pablo Reyes, Jorbit Vivas, and the swan song of Oswald Peraza. Entering the summer it was clear the current situation at the position was untenable.

GM Brian Cashman moved quickly, acquiring a player in whom he had shown interest throughout prior seasons: the Rockies’ Ryan McMahon. For a modest haul of prospects, McMahon came to the Bronx a week ahead of the deadline and provided stability at third base — particularly on defense. While his glove was as advertised, his bat made far less of an impact. By the time October rolled around, McMahon was effectively a platoon player, sitting against lefties in favor of Amed Rosario before drawing back in late for defense. While he certainly beat the alternatives the Yankees had trotted out throughout the early spring and summer, McMahon was not a particularly impactful presence for them down the stretch.

Grade: C+

2025 Overall Statistics: 154 games, .214/.312/.381, 20 HR, 53 RBI, 86 wRC+, +6 OAA, 1.9 fWAR

2025 Statistics with Yankees: 54 games, .208/.308/.333, 4 HR, 20 RBI, 84 wRC+, +3 OAA, 0.6 fWAR

2026 Contract Status: Under contract, $16M

Let’s start with the most positive part of McMahon’s game, which was of course his defense. The erstwhile Rockie was a finalist for the Gold Glove at third base in the National League, despite spending the last third of his season outside of the National League entirely. He didn’t miss a beat upon reaching the Bronx, and he made a slew of slick plays in his first week in his new threads, as if to show everyone what they’d been missing.

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McMahon’s outstanding range in the field allowed him to remain a valuable contributor despite his struggles on offense. Every time a player who has spent his entire career playing home games at Coors Field gets traded away, theories abound as to whether the change will hurt or help his offensive body of work. Years back we saw the departure from the Mile High City drastically improve DJ LeMahieu’s production when he came to New York. But if the Yankees were hoping for a similar boost from McMahon, they would be disappointed.

McMahon has always had an intriguing hitting profile, but he is routinely held back by one of the biggest swing-and-miss proclivities in the sport. In 2025, he turned in a 32.3 percent strikeout rate, the highest clip across a full 162-game season in his career. Lest anyone think that was a product of his time with the historically bad 2025 Rockies, his K rate actually got a few percentage points worse with the Yankees. Over the years, we have seen our share of Yankees hitters who were able to produce despite being vulnerable to the punchout, but there’s a line at which you strike out too much to salvage a productive season. McMahon crossed that line.

Furthermore, many of those aforementioned K-heavy hitters typically hit a lot of home runs, or at least make impact when they connect. McMahon’s power production was slim-to-none after the trade, with just four home runs and an anemic .126 ISO. His fly ball rate tumbled from 33.5 percent with Colorado to 24.2 percent with the Yankees, a drop that only hurts more when you make contact as infrequently as McMahon did. Additionally, he had very little success against non-fastballs. These numbers aren’t specific to his time in pinstripes, but they’re striking nonetheless: a .167 AVG, .346 SLG, and 51.5 percent swing-and-miss rate against breaking pitches. His .178 AVG and .333 SLG against off-speed was similarly uninspiring.

There are some positive facets to McMahon’s game, which is why he’s seemingly always been tabbed as a breakout candidate at the dish. For one thing, he complements his high volume of strikeouts with a steady diet of walks, routinely working walk rates of over 10 percent every season (it was close to 12 percent this year). For another, he generally hits the ball hard a lot. In fact, his 50.5 percent hard hit rate in 2025 was a new career best. That ability to get good wood on the ball has never translated to a 30-homer or .500 SLG season though, and the strikeouts have been such a sap on his game as to prevent that long-prognosticated breakout season from arriving.

One last problem plagued McMahon at the plate this year: futility against lefties. He has never been a particularly strong hitter against same-sided pitching, but last season he was at least close to platoon-neutral. This year he could only muster a .534 OPS against them, which meant that by the time the Yankees began their playoff run, their prize third base acquisition was effectively a platoon piece. When a southpaw was due to start, McMahon would ride the bench as Amed Rosario took his spot.

That’s not to say McMahon was bad in the playoffs. Of course, he still sparkled on defense. His tumbling catch during Cam Schlittler’s Wild Card Game 3 masterpiece only served to heighten the delirium of the Yankee crowd.

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He continued to play strong defense and added a left-on-left home run in ALDS Game 4 before the closing bell of the season. He went 4-for-14 overall in October, an acceptable clip for a bottom-of-the-lineup hitter. But his efforts could not help to turn the tide in the Yankees’ series loss to Toronto.

McMahon is still under contract for two more seasons thanks to a six-year extension he signed in Colorado back in 2022, so realistically the third base job is his to keep. I expect better offensive production from him next season than what he showed us in the second half this year, but entering his age-31 campaign, it’s safe to say that strikeout problem is always going to be there, dragging his numbers down. His defensive acumen should continue to raise his floor, but it remains to be seen if McMahon can reach his ceiling in the Bronx.