TAMPA, Fla. — The assumption was simple. Trent Grisham took the money and stayed. A center fielder coming off three straight seasons with a batting average below .200 suddenly smashes 34 home runs, gets handed a $22.025 million qualifying offer, and grabs it with both hands. Of course it was about the paycheck. Right?
Grisham says everyone got that wrong.
A breakout nobody predicted in the Bronx
When the Yankees acquired Grisham from San Diego in the December 2023 Juan Soto trade, he arrived with a reputation as an elite defender and very little else. He hit .190 in his first season in pinstripes. Before that, he posted a .184 average in 2022, .198 in 2023 and .190 in 2024. His career batting average sat at .218.
Then 2025 happened. Grisham started just one of the Yankees’ first five games. He was the fourth outfielder, the glove-first backup. But he homered his way into the everyday lineup by late April and never gave the job back.
He finished with a .235/.348/.464 slash line, 34 homers, 74 RBIs, 82 walks and an .811 OPS in 143 games. Every one of those numbers represented a career high. His previous best in home runs was 17 with the Padres in 2022. He doubled that.
The power was real, backed by career-best marks in barrel rate, exit velocity and bat speed. Baseball Savant data showed he would have hit a career-high number of home runs regardless of which ballpark he played in. This was not just the short porch in right field doing the work.
Grisham pushes back on the money motive
Coming off that kind of season at 29 years old, Grisham was projected to command roughly $45 million over three years on the open market. Instead, he accepted a one-year deal worth $22.025 million. He more than quadrupled his $5 million salary from 2025. The math looked obvious.
But after Tuesday’s spring training workout at George M. Steinbrenner Field, Grisham wanted to set the record straight.
“I want to win,” Grisham told NJ.com. “That’s really what the driving factor was. I’m a firm believer of if you keep playing this game long enough, the money takes care of itself. That’s never the biggest factor for me.”
He said he explored the market but kept coming back to the same place.
“I did my due diligence and saw what was going on in the market, but at the end of the day it’s about winning for me,” Grisham added. “I felt like this place really cares about winning and wants to do it every year.”
Grisham potentially left upwards of $20 million in guaranteed money on the table. The qualifying offer tag also complicated things. Teams that sign a player who rejected a qualifying offer lose a high draft pick as compensation, which often depresses the market for those free agents. Grisham avoided that gamble entirely.
The “running it back” debate across the Yankees fanbase
Grisham’s return was the first domino in what became a quiet offseason for the Yankees. The team re-signed five of its own free agents, headlined by Cody Bellinger’s five-year, $162.5 million deal in January. Paul Goldschmidt and Amed Rosario came back too. Nearly the entire offense that led the American League in runs scored, homers and OPS last season is intact.
That has not gone over well with a chunk of the fanbase. Yankees announcer Michael Kay publicly called the Grisham qualifying offer a mistake, arguing the team was overpaying for a player who could have been replaced. The perception that general manager Brian Cashman simply ran it back after a Division Series loss to the Blue Jays has been a sore spot all winter.
Cashman pushed back on that narrative earlier this month.
“It’s not the same roster,” Cashman said. “I disagree it’s the same team running it back. … Not afraid to run with the quality and talented roster of players that we do have.”
Grisham sides with his general manager on this one. He believes the continuity that comes with keeping the same group together is being undervalued.
“It’s rare in this business to be able to almost have almost the same team,” Grisham said. “I think the value in that is underlooked. We look at it as building. We built so much camaraderie last year as a team. I think that goes a long way in winning championships.”
Can Grisham do it again in 2026?
The question hovering over Grisham is whether his 2025 explosion was real or a one-year mirage. He hit just nine doubles alongside those 34 home runs, an unusual ratio. His .235 average was a huge improvement but still modest. More than a third of his career home run total came in a single season. Baseball Reference projects a .224/.328/.418 line with 22 homers in 2026.
Grisham is not interested in projections. He is betting on himself. The one-year deal means he can hit the open market again next winter without a qualifying offer attached, potentially setting himself up for a nine-figure contract if he repeats.
“Now I’ve got to do it again,” Grisham said. “Keep getting better.”
Asked if taking his game to an even higher level is realistic, he did not hesitate.
“It depends on who you’re talking to,” Grisham said. “If you ask me, yes. I think there’s plenty in the tank for me to keep getting better.”
The Yankees won 94 games last season and are listed at the second-shortest odds on DraftKings Sportsbook to win the 2026 World Series. Gerrit Cole’s expected return from Tommy John surgery this summer could give the rotation a massive lift. The pieces are familiar. Whether they fit together well enough to end a championship drought dating to 2009 is the question that will define this season.
Grisham says the answer starts with something money cannot buy.
“The guys in this clubhouse are very talented and have that focus,” he said. “So that’s really what drew me back. I love the guys and wanted to come back.”
Grapefruit League play opens Friday in Sarasota against the Orioles. For Grisham, it is the start of a season where he plans to prove his breakout was just the beginning.
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