BRONX, N.Y. — Six weeks ago, Ryan McMahon was the easiest player on the New York Yankees roster to write off. His batting average sat at .125 after the April 22 win over the Boston Red Sox. His OPS was .376. Trade-deadline columns were already naming him as the most obvious player the Yankees needed to move on from. The narrative wrote itself.
Then the bat started waking up. And it has not stopped since.
McMahon is now one of the Yankees’ two hottest hitters. The trade speculation has not gone away in public conversation. But internally, the Yankees have every reason to stop listening to it.
How bad it actually got in April
The low point came after Boston. McMahon was carrying a .125 batting average, the worst mark by any regular Yankees position player. His season slash line was a brutal .172/.294/.276. Right-handed pitching was the main problem. He was hitting .111 with a 32.6 percent strikeout rate against righties through 43 plate appearances. He was also rolling 59.1 percent of his batted balls against right-handers into the ground.
Manager Aaron Boone began sitting him against right-handers entirely on certain nights, with Amed Rosario starting at third base in his place. The platoon the Yankees had originally envisioned, McMahon every day with Rosario covering left-handers, had been quietly flipped. McMahon was the one being protected from righties.
The Yankees’ trade for McMahon at the 2025 deadline had been built around glove-first reasoning. He owned a career 34 outs above average mark at third base. He was a 2024 American League All-Star and a Gold Glove caliber defender. The bat was an afterthought. Through April, even the defense was wobbling, with his 2026 OAA dipping to minus-1.
The turnaround the Yankees are quietly riding
The turnaround started in early May and has built into a sustained run. Over a 15-game stretch from late April through the middle of May, McMahon hit .319 with an .858 OPS, two home runs, and eight RBIs. His final seven games inside that window were even louder. He slashed .409/.458/.682, with multi-hit games piling up and extra-base hits returning to his profile.
That stretch alone pulled his season batting average from .125 to .223. It is the kind of climb that does not happen by accident and does not show up in slumping hitters. McMahon was making harder contact, putting fewer balls on the ground, and producing damage against the same right-handed pitching that had owned him in April.
The run has carried into June. McMahon stayed hot through the Yankees’ three-game series in Cleveland, contributing in the 3-2 win over the Guardians on June 9. He has now graduated from being the player Yankees fans want traded to being one of two hitters managing to keep the lineup steady while Aaron Judge is on the injured list with a rib stress fracture. Inside the clubhouse, that change has been noticed even when the public discourse has not caught up.
The defensive piece, the original reason the Yankees acquired him, is also back. McMahon has been the glove they expected at third base in recent weeks. Combined with the bat finally producing, the case for keeping him through the deadline is no longer about defensive value alone.
Why Boone never gave up on him publicly
Boone’s faith in McMahon never wavered in front of reporters even when the numbers were at their worst. Asked back in April about McMahon’s start, when the scrutiny was peaking after another quiet game, the Yankees manager pushed back on the panic in clear language.
“I mean, Mac’s a good major league hitter,” Boone said. “It’s 10 games in, okay? He’s scuffling right now, but the reality is, the last three games, he’s been on base four times too with walks and hits and big at-bats.”
That defense looked optimistic at the time. Six weeks later, it looks like the most accurate read in the Yankees clubhouse. Boone added on the same day that McMahon was off to a slow start along with several other Yankees regulars who were also struggling. Most of those other hitters have since rebounded too. McMahon is simply doing it more visibly.
Why the Yankees should ignore the trade chatter
There are practical reasons the Yankees front office has no real motivation to move McMahon now. His contract carries through 2027 with a club option for 2028, which means any move would not be a salary dump. His value on the trade market was at its lowest exactly when the speculation was peaking, which makes selling low a non-starter for a contender. And replacing his defense at third base would require either bringing back a Rosario-McMahon platoon at reduced quality or finding a regular at the deadline, which the Yankees would prefer to spend on bullpen help.
The Yankees enter Friday at 38-30 and three back of the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East. They face a four-game series against Toronto starting at Rogers Centre. McMahon will be in the lineup. The third baseman the Yankees were once being told to trade is now one of the reasons the team has stayed competitive without Judge.
Boone said it in April. The numbers say it now. The Yankees have every reason to ignore the McMahon speculation. The bat agrees.
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