Yankees believing they can fix Ryan McMahon's bat is hubris at its finest

While most of the baseball world looks at Ryan McMahon as a $16 million platoon bat, the New York Yankees are enamored with their trade deadline acquisition. They've raved about his defense, which is admittedly well-deserved praise. Unfortunately, most of that stellar glove work was erased by the putrid .208/.308/.333 line in pinstripes.

The Yankees believe there's more within the 31-year-old just waiting to be brought out. They think they're just the organization to unlock his untapped potential. McMahon broke in the bigs in 2017, and nearly a decade later, we're still talking about untapped potential?

“I feel like there’s a real two-way player in there,” Aaron Boone said at the Winter Meetings. “And hopefully we can help him make little adjustments here that unlock all that.”

Just some little adjustments? McMahon owned a .680 road OPS as a member of the Rockies in a sample of nearly 2,000 plate appearances. The time for a tweak here or there has passed.

“I think now with us getting the full spring training with him, a winter working with him, maybe we can unlock some things,” Brian Cashman said, referring to McMahon's bat.

Those who believe the Yankees have a plan for McMahon will point to other former Rockies, DJ LeMahieu and Mike Tauchman, who found success for a time in the Bronx. Looking deeper, you can see the real issue at hand isn't confidence in the club's developmental abilities. Instead, it is hubris.

History shows that the Yankees' belief that they can fix Ryan McMahon's swing is nothing more than hubris

The Yankees might believe that their analytics are vastly superior to what the Rockies have at their disposal, and that makes them better positioned to transform these players, but the track records don't really bear that out.

Let's start with DJ LeMahieu, a two-time All-Star and the 2016 NL Batting Champ during his time with the Rockies. While it's true that LeMahieu would take home another batting crown in New York (in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season), did he really get appreciably better (not counting his decline phase) in New York?

LeMahieu was always a contact-heavy line-drive hitter, good for just 10-15 homers per season. The lone exception was 2019, which, if you recall, was the year of the juiced ball. Everyone and their mother cranked 30-plus dingers that year, including 38 from Gleyber Torres. Enough said.

As for Tauchman, he logged just 69 plate appearances in Colorado. While he immediately had success with the Yankees, posting a 128 wRC+ in 2019, he regressed to an 79 wRC+ in 2020, and a 55 mark in 2021 before leaving New York. Since then, he's been roughly a 110 wRC+ bat while bouncing around the league. Can the Yankees really take credit for that?

Perhaps more important is the Yankees' track record in developing their own hitters. The Yankees have watched Anthony Volpe regress rather than progress over the last three seasons, to the point where his standing as the anointed one at shortstop might finally be in question.

Austin Wells showed plate discipline in 2024, even if his power was lacking, but in 2025, he had marginal gains in power while seeing his on-base skills evaporate completely.

The list goes on and on. Promising youngsters like Gleyber Torres, Gary Sánchez, and many others never took the next step, with some players like Sánchez developing bad habits that the team could never snap them out of.

When was the last time the club had a homegrown hitter truly evolve and reach another level in his offensive game? Aaron Judge, but much of that has to do with his own personal hitting guru, Richard Schenck.

Outside of that, you'd be hard-pressed to point to anyone since Brett Gardner, whose late-career power surge represented a true leveling up, as a hitter who truly improved under the Yankees' tutelage.

Ben Rice might be the only exception in recent memory, and we'll have to see if he continues to build upon his promising 2025 with an even better 2026 campaign.

Given that less-than-stellar track record, hubris is the only explanation as to why the Yankees believe they can fix McMahon. We'll hope they're right, but we'll be prepared for the likelihood that they are very, very wrong.