July 9th, 2024: Rice, Holmes, Volpe, LeMahieu, Gil, McMahon

UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that some folks did not receive today's email, so I'm sending it again. There are no updates to the post below, just another email.

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ORIGINAL POST: Terrible news: ESPN picked up Yankees vs. Red Sox at Fenway Park on July 28th for Sunday Night Baseball. That will make it three Sunday night Yankees vs. Red Sox games in a seven-week span. Awful. Also, the Saturday game that series is a FOX game, so that’s a full weekend of night games. I hate it. Anyway, Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit was on this date in 2011 (video). Can’t believe it’s been 13 years already. I remember it like it was last week. Let’s get to today’s post as Ben Rice promises to shave his head if the Yankees win the World Series.

1. Weekend thoughts. I was tempted to write something about ways the Yankees could shake things up – that’s been an annual feature the last few years – but what is even the point? They never actually shake things up, and they’re short on makeable moves anyway. I guess they could call up Agustin Ramirez and put him at DH, but that only helps so much. There’s not much more to say about this team other than “they need to play better.” Here are a few thoughts on the last few games.

Ben Thrice

Apparently the secret to developing monster rookie hitters is waiting until they’re 25 to call them up. Ben Rice – Ben freaking Rice – became the latest member of the three-homer game club Saturday (video). It was his 17th career game. Aaron Judge did not hit three homers until his 801st career game. Rice was Low-A Tampa’s backup catcher two years ago. Now he’s mashing three homers in the Bronx.

“It’s definitely a day I’ll never forget. I’m just pumped that it was a big time win for us. A good bounceback win, and over my hometown team. So it’s pretty cool,” Rice told Bryan Hoch. “… Honestly (the curtain call) was all happening so fast. I think I was still just coming off the high of hitting the home run. I was just walking through the dugout and then I heard everyone yelling at me to do something. I didn’t even know what they were talking about, but as they slowly guided me toward the steps. I was like, ‘Oh, dude. A curtain call. That’s pretty cool.’”

Rice is the first Yankees rookie ever with a three-homer game and the first Yankees rookie with a 7 RBI game since fellow Ivy Leaguer Lou Gehrig in 1925. Here are a few more three-homer game nuggets:

• Seventeen career games is the fifth fastest to a three-homer game behind Aristides Aquino (10), Bobby Estalella (10), Jarrett Parker (14), and Christian Villanueva (14).

• Rice is the third rookie to hit three homers out of the leadoff spot, joining Mike Yastrzemski and Andrew McCutchen. He and Aaron Hicks are the only Yankees with three homers out of the leadoff spot, rookie or otherwise.

• He’s the first Yankee with three homers and 7 RBI in a game since Alex Rodriguez’s three-homer, 10 RBI game against Bartolo Colon in 2005.

• Rice is only the fourth Yankee with a three-homer game against the Red Sox, joining Gehrig, Hicks, and Mark Teixeira.

Rice is as advertised. It’s elite plate discipline (18.9% chase rate and 92nd percentile SEAGER) and a ton of hard-hit balls in the air (33.3 GB% and 80th percentile pulled fly balls). Even with Sunday’s 0-for-4, Rice is slashing .273/.349/.545 (154 wRC+) through 18 games. You gotta love the 17.2 K%, 12.5 BB%, and 9.6% swinging strike rate too. He’s the hitter we thought Greg Bird would be. Rice doesn’t have enough nearly enough plate appearances to qualify yet, but look at the red:

The Yankees are tentatively scheduled to see one lefty starter in the next 10 games. They have three games with the Rays and three games with the Orioles before the All-Star break, then four games with the Rays after the break. Tampa’s rotation is all righties. A lot of righties are coming up, so Rice is going to play and play a lot. The upcoming opposing starters suggested it and the three-homer game confirmed it. Leadoff hitter Ben Rice is a hell of a thing.

This is a game of adjustments and 10 straight games against the Rays and O’s will be a good challenge for Rice. They’re two very smart teams that will hone in on his weaknesses, and make Rice show he can adjust back. The foundation is so strong though. Rice knows the strike zone, he knows how to get the ball in the air, and he’s calm and confident. We haven’t seen an overmatched rookie.

“I have a lot of confidence in my approach,” Rice told Hoch. “Up here is no different. The game hasn’t changed. The bases are all in the same spots.”

Anthony Rizzo can not be activated off the 60-day injured list until Friday, Aug. 16th. It’s way too early to even begin thinking about what happens when Rizzo is ready to return. The first base job is Rice’s for the foreseeable future and gosh, it would be amazing if this lasts and we can cross a first baseman off the trade deadline (and also the offseason) shopping list. The Yankees badly needed a shot in the arm after Friday’s season-worst loss. The little heralded former 12th round pick provided it Saturday.

Bad Clay

Because shaky middle relief isn’t bad enough, the Yankees now have a Clay Holmes problem. Holmes has allowed a run(s) in five of his last seven appearances. It’s one thing when he gets beat because grounders keep finding holes*. It’s another when he’s giving up homers, something he basically never does. Masataka Yoshida, who is as close to an automatic ground ball to second base as there is this side of Alex Verdugo, took Holmes deep to tie Friday’s game.

“I felt like the pitches were there and I was executing,” Holmes told Mark Sanchez after blowing Friday’s game. “They did a good job of just fouling pitches off. Pitches I thought were pretty good pitches. It started to add up. And obviously the sinker down and in to Yoshida, he probably saw one too many there.”

* Holmes has a .306 BABIP on ground balls this year. It was .215 from 2022-23.

Holmes threw 30 pitches in that inning and the Red Sox fouled away seven, including six with two strikes. He threw Yoshida seven pitches, all sinkers. Never showed him a slider. Questionable. And the slider is the problem right now. Holmes has two sliders, a sweeper and a traditional slider, and his location with both is just terrible right now. Look at his slider locations:

Yeah, that ain’t gonna work. Holmes has been hanging his slider a bunch, which leads to things like seven straight sinkers to Yoshida because you’re afraid of leaving a slider in the middle of the plate. Holmes has had bad stretches before (11 seven runs in a five-game span in August 2022, 10 runs in a six-game span in August 2023, etc. ) and he’s always straightened himself out. As long as he’s not hurt, I assume he’ll straighten himself out again. I’m not panicking, just annoyed.

What do the Yankees do with Holmes until he rights the ship? They could remove him from the closer’s role (they did this briefly in 2022), which doesn’t really solve the problem. It just moves it around. Make Luke Weaver the closer and now there’s a hole at setup, etc. And this isn’t the bullpen of yesteryear. It’s shaky. High leverage alternatives are limited. The Yankees need Holmes to be better. They can’t just push him aside and let their high-end bullpen depth cover it.

If the Yankees can avoid using Holmes in close games for a bit, they should do that. Let Weaver, Tommy Kahnle, and Michael Tonkin handle the most important innings. But if it comes down to, say, Holmes or Caleb Ferguson in a high leverage spot, or Holmes or Jake Cousins, then give me Holmes. He went 1-2-3 with three strikeouts the appearance before Friday’s blown save (video). It’s still in there. We’re just not seeing it consistently. The Yankees need bullpen help. That was true even before Holmes’ rough patch.

On whatever that “rundown” was

Holmes allowing the two-run homer Friday wouldn’t have been a killer had Anthony Volpe not slowed up on what became an inning-ending 3-6 double play in the third inning. To recap: The Yankees had runners on the corners with one out, Rice hit a chopper to first, Romy Gonzalez stepped on the bag for the first out (removing the force), then threw to second. DJ LeMahieu was tagged for the third out, and because Volpe slowed up and did not cross the plate before the tag, the run didn’t score. It was bad. Here’s the video.

“Just got to be better. Just play it all the way through,” Volpe told Sanchez, adding he thought the ball went foul, which is why he slowed up. Which isn’t a good excuse. If the ball’s on the infield and you’re coming home, you have to run it out as hard as you can. Runs are precious.

Volpe not running was bad, but honestly, I think LeMahieu not getting in a rundown was worse. He ran right into the tag when he should have stopped and gotten into a rundown*, giving Volpe time to cross the plate. LeMahieu’s a 14-year veteran. He’s played second base the majority of his career. He should know exactly what to do on that play because he’s been on the other side of it who knows how many times. And yet, LeMahieu ran right into the out. The Yankees did not score and it cost them in the end.

* Judge played this correctly in Toronto two weeks ago (video).

This is just dumb, brainless baseball. It has been a constant problem over the years. Every single night the Yankees have to overcome the other team and their own low baseball IQ mistakes. These mistakes have gotten a lot of attention lately because the Yankees are reeling, but they’re nothing new, right? Every other day they screw up on the bases, miss the cutoff man, botch a rundown, whatever. They give away free outs and free bases on the regular.

Players should always shoulder the blame, especially veterans who should know better like LeMahieu, but these dopey fundamentals have gone on long enough that it’s on the coaches and Aaron Boone. He’s the manager. He’s in charge of this stuff and it’s still a problem, year after year. “We talk about finishing the play all the time and that’s an area where we got to do it,” Boone told Sanchez, but his teams don’t do it. It’s costly. It’s exhausting. This team is so bad at the little things. 

Miscellany

Excellent bounceback start from Luis Gil on Sunday: 6.2 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 9 K, 1 HR (video). His release point ticked back up …

… and he also threw a season high 35% sliders and a season low 16% changeups. It was 17% sliders and 27% changeups in his first 17 starts. That’s a thing to watch going forward. It was nice to see the good version of Gil though. Hopefully those last three starts were just a blip in a long season … Judge is in a slump (2-for-20 in his last five games) and he’s allowed to slump after the May and June he had. He’ll be fine. I’m done doubting the guy. Juan Soto has been scuffling for a little bit though – in this case “scuffling” is a .186/.407/.356 (134 wRC+) line in his last 18 games – and Judge and Soto slumping at the same time is bad news. How are the Yankees supposed to score? Well, if the opposing infield doesn’t kick the ball around (like Friday) or the rookie first baseman doesn’t hit three homers (like Saturday), then they don’t score (like Sunday) … What an outing from Tim Hill on Saturday. He retired eight of the nine batters he faced (the one baserunner came on a Volpe error) and six of the nine either struck out or hit the ball on the ground. Eight outs is the longest outing of Hill’s career (by two outs). On only eight other occasions has he gone even two full innings. Hill’s running a 70.0 GB% in pinstripes … And finally, the stolen base drought has reached 20 games. It is the Yankees’ longest stolen base drought since 1964, and they’ve attempted only two steals in these last 20 games. Their last stolen base came when Volpe stole second and third against Brayan Bello in the first game of the Fenway Park series last month. The Yankees aren’t built to steal bases, and the one guy on the roster who can consistently steal bases has a .202 OBP in his last 26 games. Cripes.

Injury updates and roster moves

Gleyber Torres (groin) exited Friday’s game with tightness and has not been seen since. The Yankees say he’s day-to-day, but you know how that goes. Torres also exited the June 20th game with groin tightness, so this is something he’s been dealing with for a little bit. Hopefully Gleyber’s back in there Tuesday. As bad as he’s been this year, he is the Yankees’ best second base option. Also, when Torres does return, Oswaldo Cabrera should play third. He’s not good, don’t get me wrong, but LeMahieu is 32 games into his season and he’s hitting .194/.288/.223 (55 wRC+). Cabrera offers at least a shred of athleticism at the hot corner … JT Brubaker (elbow) moved up to Triple-A Scranton and Friday’s rehab start didn’t go well: 2.2 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 5 BB, 1 K, 1 HR on 57 pitches. Velocity is still down a tick compared to 2022, the last time he pitched in MLB, but it is trending up. Movement is where it usually is too. Obviously the command wasn’t there Friday. Brubaker’s 30-day rehab window expires Friday, July 19th. The Yankees can request up to three 10-day extensions because he’s a Tommy John surgery guy, and I’m sure they’ll extend his rehab a bit … Cody Poteet (triceps) has begun playing catch. He’s already been on the injured list more than 15 days, so he can return whenever he’s ready. Doesn’t sound like he’s close though … And finally, Phil Bickford is back. He elected free agency after being DFAed last week, then returned on a new minor league contract. He’s back with the RailRiders. Odds we see Bickford back with the Yankees later this season are annoyingly high.

Up next

Three games in Tampa, three games in Baltimore, then the All-Star break. I think we all need a break from this team. Here’s the schedule between now and the next post:

• Tuesday at Rays: LHP Carlos Rodón vs. RHP Ryan Pepiot (6:50pm ET on YES)

• Wednesday at Rays: RHP Marcus Stroman vs. RHP Zach Eflin 6:50pm ET on Amazon)

• Thursday at Rays: LHP Nestor Cortes vs. RHP Shane Baz (6:50pm ET on YES)

The Yankees play seven of their next 10 games against the Rays (with the All-Star break mixed in). They are 13-16 with a -7 run differential against AL East teams this year, and you can thank Mr. Rice for that run differential not being worse. It’s the second week of July, it would be silly to call this a make or break week, but the Yankees need to do something in Tampa and Baltimore. They can’t go 1-5 again like last week.

2. Scouting the Trade Market: Ryan McMahon. The trade deadline is three weeks away and pretty much everything that isn’t Aaron Judge or Juan Soto (or Ben Rice) is going wrong with the Yankees right now. They need offense, they need pitching, they need everything. It might not be possible to address all their needs at the deadline. The shopping list is simply too long. They might have to pick and choose.

Third base stands out as an obvious need and has all season. It has for several years, really. The Yankees have had a parade of below average third basemen since Gio Urshela’s rocket ball seasons. Their best third baseman since then is the time DJ LeMahieu spent at the hot corner from 2021-24, and 2021-24 LeMahieu hasn’t been anything special. There’s no internal help coming either (not unless you think highly of Jon Berti). Third base is a short and long-term need.

In recent weeks Jon Morosi (video) and Bob Nightengale both reported the Yankees would love to get their hands on Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon, who may or may not be available. Patrick Saunders recently noted McMahon is a favorite of Rockies owner Dick Monfort, plus the Rockies don’t always do the sensible thing, right? They are very bad (32-58 and -149 run differential entering Monday) and should sell, but may not.

McMahon, 29 and Colorado’s token All-Star, took a .272/.347/.454 (111 wRC+) line and 14 home runs into Monday’s game, and he’s hit .251/.330/.435 (95 wRC+) since 2021. Underwhelming on the surface, but park factors still have not figured out Coors Field. There’s a hangover effect when the Rockies go on the road too. It’s a mess. We’ll get into it more in a bit. That’s what McMahon is doing this year though.

Despite the high likelihood this will go for naught because the Rockies won’t make McMahon available, let’s dig into him as a possible trade target, shall we?

Background

The Rockies have a long history of drafting quarterbacks (Todd Helton, Kyle Parker, Seth Smith, Russell Wilson, Michael Vick) and McMahon is in that group. He was a star quarterback recruit at his California high school and also a pretty good baseball player. Colorado took him with the No. 42 pick in the 2013 draft, paid him a $1.3276M slot bonus, and got him to give up football.

McMahon developed well after giving up football and focusing on baseball full-time. He was a consensus top 100 prospect every year from 2015-18 and he made his big league debut late in 2017. It wasn’t until 2019, however, that he broke into the lineup full-time. LeMahieu left as a free agent after 2018 and the Rockies put McMahon at second base to replace him. He’s been a mainstay since.

Offense

In 2024, we know better than to look at a Rockies’ player’s road numbers and say that’s the real him. The Coors Field hangover is real – Charlie Blackmon’s been trying to counteract it for years – so we’re stuck with a group of players who, on the whole, perform better than their true talent level at home and worse than their true talent level on the road. Folks have been trying to find the middle ground for decades.

Like most Rockies, McMahon’s slash line has been better at home than on the road throughout his career. He’s been better on the road (124 wRC+) than at home (97 wRC+) this season, though that’s an outlier. Here are his splits since 2021:

• Home: .269/.343/.478 (95 wRC+) with 27.5 K% and 9.7 BB%

• Road: .231/.316/.389 (95 wRC+) with 27.8 K% and 10.8 BB%

I don’t want to spend too much time trying to crack the Coors Field code when I don’t cover the Rockies (I couldn’t tell you the last time I even wrote a CBS post about them) and the Yankees are unlikely to trade for McMahon. Rather, let’s focus on his core offensive skills, and leave how they will translate elsewhere to the imagination. Sound good? It has to, because that’s what we’re doing.

Hard-hit ability: McMahon is an exit velocity dude. His career high is the 24 home runs he hit during the rocket ball season in 2019, but all the underlying contact quality numbers are above average. The red here has been red for years:

Coors Field does not generate exit velocity. Hit a ball 95 mph and it’s 95 mph regardless of whether you’re at sea level or a mile up. Altitude changes how far that 95 mph ball will travel, not how hard it’s hit. McMahon is one of the best exit velocity guys in the league and has been throughout his career. Hitting the ball hard is undeniably a good thing and McMahon most definitely does it.

Batted ball direction: McMahon is a left-handed hitter and an all-fields guy, not someone who projects to get a big Yankee Stadium boost. He’s pulled 5.5% of his fly balls this year, putting him in the 24th percentile, and he’s running an abnormally high 49.6% ground ball rate this season. Not sure what’s going on there. It was 42.1% from 2021-23. That’s a much better number given his hard-hit ability.

Here are McMahon’s fly balls and line drives since Opening Day 2023:

When he really gets into a pitch, McMahon will pull it and hit it as far as anyone. Most of his balls in the air go to center and left fields though, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It does mute his power some and that spray chart is excellent for spacious Coors Field. In Yankee Stadium though, not so much. Lefties benefit from pulling the ball in the Bronx and avoiding left-center field, and that’s not McMahon.

Plate discipline: Not great and getting worse despite a walk rate that has consistently sat right around 10%. The underlying numbers suggest McMahon’s swing decisions are going in the wrong direction:

McMahon’s overall swing rate has held steady in the 47% range over the years, which is league average, but he’s swinging at more pitches out of the zone and fewer pitches in the zone. That is … not great. The issue is non-fastballs. McMahon is chasing more breaking balls and changeups, not fastballs, and the pattern is several seasons long at this point. Hmmm.

I should note McMahon’s discipline is not bad. The league average chase rate is 28.3%, so he’s still under that, but SEAGER tells us he’s not swinging at the right pitches, and he is chasing non-fastballs a little more with each passing year. McMahon’s trending from above average discipline to average, and from above average “aggressively swing at hittable pitches” to below average (that’s what SEAGER tells us).

Contact skills: Also not great. McMahon’s running a 27.4 K% this year and it’s 28.6% K% for his career, and both his swinging strike rate (misses per pitch) and whiff rate (misses per swing) are below average. This year’s 81.6% in-zone contact rate is below the 85.3% league average and better than his career average (80.0%), but look at his 2023-24 contact heat map. Talk about a grooved swing:

You can see McMahon’s path bat. Kinda neat. But also not good! McMahon does all his damage – he makes all his contact – in one quadrant of the strike zone. He has a pretty large hole at the top of the zone and that can be exploited. Pitchers make mistakes and a lot of McMahon’s damage at the bottom of the zone has come on breaking balls or changeups that weren’t down enough. Execute a fastball in the top third of the strike zone though, and you can retire McMahon. There’s a vulnerability.

Platoon splits: McMahon could use a platoon partner. He’s been better against lefties (131 wRC+) than righties (102 wRC+) this season, but like his home/road split, it’s an outlier. McMahon has been very weak against lefties since 2021:

• vs. RHP: .259/.337/.467 (105 wRC+) with 27.4 K% and 10.4 BB%

• vs. LHP: .230/.312/.357 (72 wRC+) with 28.2 K% and 10.0 BB%

To sum it all up, McMahon has excellent hard-hit ability, among the best in baseball. He also uses the entire field, which is a good thing overall but indicates he won’t get a huge boost from Yankee Stadium as is. McMahon’s swing decisions are backsliding though, and he’s very susceptible to pitches up in the zone. His swing is geared to do damage in one part of the strike zone and that’s it. He would also benefit from a platoon partner.

Defense

McMahon is a natural third baseman, but being a third base prospect in Colorado’s system from 2013-20 meant you were blocked by Nolan Arenado, so McMahon began his big league career playing first and second bases. It wasn’t until Arenado was traded away prior to the 2021 season that McMahon moved to third full-time. He’s terrific at the hot corner according to both the numbers and the eye test (video):

• 2021: +13 DRS and +10 OAA

• 2022: +10 DRS and +9 OAA

• 2023: +17 DRS and +11 OAA

• 2024: +4 DRS and +3 OAA 

Only Ke’Bryan Hayes has racked up more DRS and OAA at third base since 2011 than McMahon. The components of DRS and OAA say McMahon is an average thrower (he ranks 12th among third baseman in arm strength) with excellent range. He has experience at first and second bases but rates average-ish at both spots. You can put him there if you need to, even for an extended stretch if necessary, but this guy’s a third baseman. You’re giving back a ton of value by not playing McMahon at the hot corner.

It should be noted that McMahon will turn 30 in December, so he’s likely closer to the end of his time as a top defensive third baseman than the beginning. Defensive WAR is the only public defensive stat we can search by age, and since batted ball tracking began in 2002, only 13 third basemen put up even +2 dWAR from ages 30-34. Perhaps McMahon, who averaged +2 dWAR per year from 2021-23, can join that select group. He seems to have the skills for it. At least range-wise, anyway.

Baserunning

For a guy who was a high level two-sport athlete as an amateur and is rangy at third base now, McMahon is shockingly slow. This year’s 26.0 ft/s sprint speed and 4.63-second home-to-first time are in line with his last few years and below average. To put it in Yankees terms, McMahon's speed is in the same range as LeMahieu's (26.2 ft/s and 4.74 seconds in 2024). Yikes!

Not surprisingly then, McMahon doesn’t bring much to the table on the bases. Here are the last few years:

• 2021: 6-for-8 (75%) in steals and 55% extra-base taken rate 

• 2022: 7-for-10 (70%) in steals and 45% extra-base taken rate 

• 2023: 5-for-10 (50%) in steals and 42% extra-base taken rate

• 2024: 3-for-7 (43%) in steals and 53% extra-base taken rate

The MLB averages are a 78% stolen base success rate and a 42% extra-base taken rate this year. McMahon is above the extra-base taken rate, though that has a lot to do with Coors Field and its massive outfield. There is so much ground to cover and so much room for balls to fall in that you can just run and run and take the extra base. The Yankees are slow and the opposite of dynamic on the bases. McMahon will not help that. If anything, he’ll only make it worse.

Injury history

Clean. McMahon has been on the injured list once in his professional career. He missed 12 days with a sprained left elbow in April 2019. That was a fluke injury. He was playing first base and got Brian Robertsed. An errant throw took his glove into the runner’s path and the collision bent his arm back (video). McMahon’s had no issues since and it’s his non-throwing elbow, so it’s not like there might be a partial UCL tear hiding in there that will one day fully give out when he makes a throw. He’s been durable.

Contract status

Say what you want about the Rockies and their decision-making, but they do pay their players. They give out a lot of extensions. McMahon signed a six-year, $70M deal in March 2022. Otherwise he would have become a free agent this past offseason, meaning we missed out on pretending the Yankees might sign McMahon despite knowing full well they would sink or swim with LeMahieu at third.

ANYWAY, McMahon still has another three years remaining on his extension beyond this season. Here’s what he’s owed:

• 2024: $12M ($4M or so left if you get him right at the deadline)

• 2025: $12M

• 2026: $16M

• 2027: $16M

There are some conditional opt outs McMahon is unlikely to trigger – he can opt out after 2025 if he finishes in the top five of the 2024 MVP voting, ditto 2026 with the 2025 MVP voting – otherwise it’s a straightforward deal. Get McMahon on deadline day and the Yankees will pay $8.4M in 2024 between salary and the 110% luxury tax rate, then his luxury tax number from 2025-27 is $14.67M.

The contract is very reasonable – $44M from 2025-27 is Jeimer Candelario money (three years and $45M) –  and McMahon does not have any no-trade protection. He has no say in a potential trade.

What would it take?

McMahon’s contract status – signed for another 3.5 years (four postseason runs) – means we’re short on reference points. Not many players get traded at this point in their careers. I’ve dug up two:

• Willy Adames (Rays to Brewers): Traded with 3.5 years of a middle reliever (Trevor Richards) for six years of an MLB-ready starter (Drew Rasmussen) and six years of an MLB-ready reliever (J.P. Feyereisen).

• Daulton Varsho (D’Backs to Blue Jays): Traded for an MLB-ready global top 20 prospect (Gabriel Moreno) and one year of an average MLB player (Lourdes Gurriel Jr.).

Both trades were made between two contenders (or at least two teams hoping to contend), hence returns that included two players that could be plugged directly into the big league roster. These weren’t the usual “prospects for an MLB player” trades between a rebuilder and a contender.

The Rockies might consider themselves a contender! They’re unpredictable and I love them for it. They remind me of a team from my youth, when teams were bad and didn’t know why instead of bad on purpose. They’re almost like a control group: How would a team run by fans who think they’re smarter than the people who do this for a living actually fare? I hope the Rockies never ever change.

Anyway, I have no idea how to value McMahon in a trade. There’s very little trade precedent for a player with this much contractual control remaining, but it sounds like the Rockies don’t want to trade him, so they are likely to ask for a boatload. There’s a third baseman lull at the moment. There aren’t many good ones out there, so if the Rockies make McMahon available, the Yankees will have competition.

Does he make sense for the Yankees?

I’m on the fence. I came into this expecting to be all-in on McMahon, but the swing stuff scares me – his success is tied up entirely in one part of the zone – and his plate discipline is trending the wrong way. He’s contact-challenged too. His 30th birthday is coming up, so the defense may not remain top notch much longer, and the contract means he’s locked in. There’s no escape hatch (i.e. non-tender-ability) in the event things go wrong. Add in what is likely to be a sky high asking price because the Rockies don’t want to trade him, and I’m more ehhh than yeah.

But also, who else are the Yankees supposed to get to play third base? Luis Rengifo just went down with a wrist injury, so he may no longer be a trade option. Isaac Paredes? He would work if the Rays decide to trade him and they can find common ground with the Yankees. Jake Burger? Patrick Wisdom? Abraham Toro (who’s hurt)? Eugenio Suárez? The third base pickings are slim, and it’s not like the upcoming free agent class is great. McMahon, warts and all, may be the best option. And if things do go wrong, the contract wouldn’t be a payroll killer.

McMahon’s skill set is not nearly as extreme as Joey Gallo’s, but there are some similarities. His margin of error within the strike zone is small – if it’s not down and on the inner half, he won’t punish it – and the rest of his game is pretty maxed out. When the Yankees got Gallo in 2021, that was as good as it was gonna get for him. It was elite power, elite walk rate, elite defense, and even elite baserunning (other than stolen bases), with one of the lowest contact rates in the sport. There was no more upside. He was at his ceiling.

McMahon hits the ball very hard and his defense is very good. You can’t really expect him to do much more in those departments. He can’t give you much on the bases given his lack of speed. There’s a limitation there. Perhaps you can get McMahon to pull/elevate the ball more? That would certainly help. Is there a way to reverse the trend with his discipline and get him back to his 2021-22 approach? Yeah, maybe. And maybe getting him away from Coors Field helps. Playing at a consistent altitude.

Also, why am I even talking about McMahon getting better? He’s good as he is. There are some red flags in his game, but every player has flaws, and we should focus on what a player does, not what he can’t do. I know I’m very guilty of focusing on the bad stuff. McMahon has serious thump in his bat. The dude hits the ball very hard. He’s great at third base too. The glove means he’ll never be a total zero. Even when he’s not hitting, McMahon is helping his team with high level defense.

If the Yankees trade for McMahon, I’d certainly understand it, though I’m a bit uneasy. It’s not just a Coors Field thing either. There are potential pitfalls with the discipline trending the wrong way and the contact skills. There’s always a price where it makes sense, but seeing how the Rockies don’t want to trade McMahon, I suspect the price would be above what I’m comfortable with. Well, whatever. Odds are against a trade anyway. Rockies gonna Rockie.

3. 2024 draft prospect: Louisiana HS RHP William Schmidt. The 2024 MLB Draft will take place during the All-Star break and the Yankees hold the No. 26 pick. Here are the draft prospects I’ve already profiled. Some are players the Yankees are reported to have interest in, some are players who fit the team’s M.O., and some are players I like for whatever reason. We’re covering a little of everything. 

Schmidt, 18, is arguably the top high school pitcher in the draft class. He’s got the build (6-foot-4 and 180 lbs.), the athleticism, the pitch package and data, and the track record (excellent in showcase events) to satisfy both old school scouts and new school analytics nerds. Simply put, Schmidt is one of the most talented players in the 2024 draft class. Here’s where the latest draft rankings have him:

• Baseball America (subs. req’d): No. 32

• ESPN (subs. req’d): No. 27

• Keith Law (subs. req’d): No. 30

• MLB Pipeline: No. 16

In his latest mock draft Carlos Collazo (subs. req’d) said the “earliest (Schmidt is) likely to come off the board” is No. 23 to the Dodgers, which isn’t too far ahead of the Yankees. Some other recent mock drafts have Schmidt falling out of the first round entirely (more on that in a bit). Here’s video and here is a chunk of Baseball America’s scouting report (subs. req’d), which is most informative:

Few pitchers in the 2024 class can spin the baseball like Schmidt … Schmidt has a projectable pitcher’s frame with long limbs and plenty of room to add more strength. He works from the first base side of the rubber, has plenty of length in a deep arm stroke and throws from a three-quarters slot with a bit of effort and some recoil in his finish. Schmidt has slowly added more velocity over the last year and a half or so, and during the 2024 spring season he ran the pitch up to 98 mph while consistently pitching in the mid 90s. While Schmidt’s fastball progression is encouraging, the foundation of his upside is built on his devastating high-spin curveball—which many scouts believe is the best curve in the draft class. It’s a low-80s hammer with huge depth and 12-to-6 shape with spin rates that are consistently in the 2,900 rpm range or higher. Schmidt has done a nice job landing his curve, despite its large movement profile, in the zone and using it as both an in-zone swing-and-miss offering and a chase pitch below the zone. He has thrown a low-to-mid-80s changeup, but it’s a distinct third offering now that will need more development to become a significant piece of his arsenal.

Law (subs. req’d) says Schmidt “might end up with three grade-70 offerings (on the 20-80 scouting scale),” which is Gerrit Cole kinda stuff. MLB Pipeline adds he “used to elicit comparisons to three-time All-Star Adam Wainwright, but now he's better at the same stage of his career.” The praise is lofty. All involved seem to believe Schmidt has a chance to be a star. So why isn’t he a slam dunk first rounder?

A few reasons. One, there is a bias against high school pitchers. There’s so much injury risk and they have so far to go in terms of building up their stamina and pitch count. In the first round, teams would rather go with a college pitcher who is closer to a finished product and has already shown he can handle a large workload (relatively speaking). Basically, teams are risk averse and high school pitchers are risky.

Two, Schmidt is committed to LSU, which can be a difficult commitment to break. That ties into the third point: Schmidt’s probably asking for a ton of money. If he doesn’t go in the first round, then he’ll probably go in the Competitive Balance Round to a team with an extra pick(s), or possibly even at some point in Day 2, after a team spends the night negotiating and pinning down a number before taking Schmidt. That’s why some mock drafts have him out of the first round.

The Brewers, Diamondbacks, and Twins all have multiple extra picks and nice big bonus pools. They are positioned well to meet Schmidt’s asking price, whatever it is. The Yankees? Not so much. They have an $8.13M bonus pool. The top high school pitchers in the last few drafts have signed for $4M to $4.5M, so if Schmidt wants $4.5M to $5M (No. 14 pick money), that’s most of the bonus pool right there.

The money just may not work for the Yankees. They’d have to go below slot with several other picks to be able to afford Schmidt, creating an “all your eggs in one basket” scenario. Maybe it’s worth it. It depends how the Yankees view Schmidt. There have been reports recently that the Yankees prefer an arm in the first round, and Schmidt is one of the best pitchers in the draft class, so I’d say he’s on the radar.

4. Rapid fire thoughts. Clay Holmes will join Aaron Judge and Juan Soto at the All-Star Game. Not the best timing for the announcement, eh? Even Holmes said he was “probably a little surprised,” per Pete Caldera. He was a commissioner’s office pick, not a players’ ballot pick. I assume they needed a reliever and took whoever had the most saves. Luis Gil didn’t make it, which is a bummer. He still could as an injury/workload replacement. Those will trickle in over the next few days, but unless it’s a “this team needs a token All-Star” situation, they usually just take whoever’s next on the players’ ballot when they need a replacement. We’ll see. I hope Gil gets in. Would be a great story (and he might never have a better chance to make it). Here are the All-Star Game rosters. Pretty weak group, no? I miss the days when guys like Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, and Vlad Guerrero Sr. would hit 2-3-4-5. Those were All-Star Games, you know? I’ll stop yelling at clouds now. Also, is it weird I kinda like the All-Star uniforms this year? MLB should definitely go back to letting everyone wear their individual team uniform though, and Tyler Kepner (subs. req’d) says there is “momentum toward a revival of the old tradition for 2025.” Let’s hope that happens.

(Send your requests for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com. The random Yankee series is on hiatus, but feel free to send in requests for when it returns.)