Quick thoughts after the Yankees acquire Ryan McMahon

UPDATE: The Yankees have announced the trade. It is as reported: McMahon for Herring and Grosz with no money changing hands. Aaron Boone said he's not sure when McMahon will join the team. Doesn't sound like it'll be tonight and another Headley situation.

"I'm really excited," Boone told Chris Kirschner about the trade. "(He's) an All-Star third baseman. Really good defender. Has had some ups and downs offensively this year. Really feel like, over the last month, he's really swinging the bat well, but he's a presence and can really defend over there at third and has for a number of years. We're excited to get him.”

ORIGINAL POST: The Yankees have an honest-to-goodness third baseman. The Yankees have acquired Ryan McMahon from the Rockies for High-A pitching prospects Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz, according to all the trustworthy reporters. Neither team has officially announced the trade. That should come soon. The Yankees have an open 40-man roster spot. No move is needed there. I assume Jorbit Vivas will go down to open a 26-man roster spot.

McMahon, 30, is not a rental. He’s signed affordably through 2027 ($17M annual salaries) and that’s a big plus given the yucky free agent infielder classes coming up. The big selling point on McMahon is his defense. He’s a very good defender (+4 DRS and +4 OAA this year) who is reliable on routine plays and can make highlight plays when needed. The Yankees badly need to improve their infield defense and McMahon will help.

Offensively, McMahon has not hit much this season (.217/.314/.403 and 88 wRC+), especially away from Coors Field (.189/.265/.324 and 64 wRC+), though we know better than to look at a Rockies’ player’s road stats and say that’s him. The Coors Field hangover is real. DJ LeMahieu was better with the Yankees than he ever was in Colorado. Nolan Arenado was Nolan Arenado his first few years in St. Louis, before age-related decline set in.

What McMahon does do at the plate is hit the ball (very) hard and pull it in the air as a left-handed batter. His 18.8% pulled air rate this year is above the 16.6% league average and good more than positively elite. McMahon should mix well with the short porch, but we’ve said that about a lot of lefties over the years, and it hasn’t always played out that way. We have to see how it plays out on the field. There is red in the right places though:

The blue is in the wrong places too. McMahon’s strikeout (31.7%), swinging strike (14.8%), and in-zone contact (78.2%) rates are among the worst in the game, and that has been true his entire career. He will drive you nuts with whiffs, and when guys like this slump, it is Joey Gallo ugly. I am not a fan of this part of McMahon’s game (who is?), but you have to live with it to get the power potential and glove.

I answered a mailbag question about McMahon a few weeks ago* and said I was a “soft no but can see the vision” given the underwhelming infield market this trade deadline and in the offseason. Crazier things have happened, but we can safely assume this takes the Yankees out on Eugenio Suárez. The Yankees rarely trade top prospects period, and especially at the deadline. Getting Suárez might’ve required that.

* I wrote a Scouting the Market post on McMahon leading up to last year's deadline.

Herring, last year’s sixth rounder, and Grosz, a 2023 11th rounder, were not among my preseason Top 30 Prospects but would have been in a midseason update. Baseball America (subs. req’d) has Griffin at No. 17 in the system and Grosz unranked in their post-draft top 30 Yankees' prospects. MLB Pipeline has Griffin and Grosz at No. 8 and 21, respectively, in their midseason update. Good prospects, both of them, but also the kinda prospects you trade no questions asked for MLB help in the middle of a division/Wild Card race.

(Neither Herring nor Grosz will be Rule 5 Draft eligible after this season. The Yankees did not trade from that pool of prospects to get McMahon.)

The trade nets the Yankees a new third baseman, something they’ve needed for four years now, for both this year and the next two. The cost is more than reasonable (I think the Mariners gave up more for rental Josh Naylor on Thursday) and the trade also shows Hal Steinbrenner is okay adding payroll at the deadline. That hasn’t always been a given the last few years. (Joel Sherman says the Yankees are taking on the entire contract.)

McMahon was in Baltimore with the Rockies and maybe he’ll show up and join the Yankees mid-game like Chase Headley back in 2014. Remember that? Headley came off the bench to hit a walk-off single in extra innings a few hours after the trade (video). Headley’s a good player comp for McMahon as a third baseman who will make all the plays and then some, and do enough offensively to be competent while also leaving you wanting more.

The bar at third base is on the floor. Yankees' third basemen other than Jazz Chisholm Jr. are hitting .172/.250/.247 (43 wRC+) with -0.8 WAR this season. McMahon’s better than that. Potentially 2-3 wins better the rest of the season. I would have rather just paid the price for Suárez (another strikeout-prone hitter) and gotten the better player, but I understand going for the younger player signed beyond 2025. This a long-term fix. Not a band-aid.

The strikeouts will make for an ugly watch. They always do. The upside is McMahon can play third and play it well, and there’s a chance his offensive output will take off in Yankee Stadium. This figures to be the first of several moves before Thursday’s 6pm ET trade deadline. The focus now will be pitching, pitching, and more pitching. A big and important deadline box has been checked.