Ryan McMahon's glow-up with Yankees is doing more than just saving trade discourse

Sometimes, Yankees fans (including us) can be infected with the disease that has you believe the roster should be filled with All-Stars at every position. While it's understandable to demand excellence from one of the best franchises in all of sports, it's troublesome to be that delusional after how much the game has changed.

Ryan McMahon fell victim to that debate last year when he was acquired at the trade deadline and failed to do much of anything with his bat. Though he was solid in the playoffs, the veteran hit just .208 with a .641 OPS and 79 OPS+ in 54 games.

Still, though, he accumulated 1.1 WAR because of his sterling defense at the hot corner. Some fans valued it, others said it wasn't an excuse for him to strike out over 30% of the time. But things got worse in 2026.

McMahon was in the midst of changing his batting stance, and the results were bad. At the onset of 2026, his defense also suffered a bit. He made four errors in his first 32 games and wasn't hitting above .200 until the first week of May. That's when Amed Rosario started getting some third base reps (an even bigger disaster) and the calls to platoon McMahon grew louder.

But how about now? McMahon has been Mr. Clutch for the Yankees and is starting to look like the all-around solid third baseman the team hoped it was acquiring last July. Over his last two weeks, McMahon is hitting .290 with an .830 OPS. His two doubles, one homer and five RBI have been incredibly valuable in keeping New York afloat.

Ryan McMahon trade is looking better by the day for Yankees. Rollercoaster!

Since Aug. 2, the Yankees are 6-1 when McMahon scores a run or notches an RBI. Throughout the year, believe it or not, his production in "late and close" situations (per Baseball-Reference) has been nothing short of dominant.

The RISP numbers aren't great and will need a bit of a facelift for all of this to come together and really take him to the next level, but we'll take what we can get after we weren't sure if he'd ever be a capable hitter again.

And how about revisiting this trade quickly? Criticize the decision to acquire $36+ million of McMahon's remaining contract all you want, but don't we want the Yankees to spend money, even when it's sometimes irresponsible? In this case, it wasn't the best investment, but it got them an All-Star-caliber defender when they had no third baseman at all.

Could the Yankees have made better use of top pitching prospects Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz at the time? You could argue it's possible! Perhaps throwing them in a larger package could've netted them something better. You never know. But at this point, it doesn't matter.

Herring has an 8.87 ERA and 2.10 WHIP in 12 games at Double-A. He has allowed 23 earned runs in 23 1/3 innings. Grosz, on the other hand, was traded to the Diamondbacks for outfielder Jake McCarthy in January. He has a 4.46 ERA and 1.32 WHIP in 42 1/3 innings. His 65 strikeouts are impressive, but his control is erratic.

All we'll need is McMahon to continue to be serviceable and then deliver a trademark moment in the postseason. Then we can probably put this to bed. In the end, the Yankees can afford to pay a premium for reliable third base defense and get away with not getting their full money's worth.

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