NEW YORK — Aaron Judge is having a big season. Ben Rice has been one of the best offensive stories in baseball through the first six weeks. The top of the Yankees order is carrying its weight.
The bottom is different. Jazz Chisholm Jr. is batting .201 with a .603 OPS and a 72 wRC+ through 41 games. He went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts Monday in Baltimore and declined to speak to reporters. The Yankees have lost four straight and scored eight runs in that stretch. The question is no longer abstract: should someone else be playing second base?
Why the Yankees have kept Chisholm in the lineup this long
Boone has not benched Chisholm. The reasons are real. Chisholm hit 30 home runs and stole 30 bases in 2025. His exit velocity ranks in the 79th percentile. His hard-hit rate is in the 84th. The quality contact is still there. The problem is a barrel rate of 6.1 percent and production that has not followed. Boone has pointed to a player pressing in a contract year rather than a player who has lost his ability.
“You sense guys feeling it when you’re a month-plus in and you’re not doing what the back of your baseball card is,” Boone said. “Sometimes you’ve got to slow things down first and have some small successes to get you going again.”
That explanation carries logic. It also only holds for so long. The Yankees are on a four-game losing streak. They have scored eight runs in four games. A second baseman posting a 72 wRC+ is not helping.
The Baltimore blot
Jazz Chisholm Jr. did not merely share blame in the Yankees’ offensive failure Monday. His performance became the face of it.
Chisholm went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in the 3-2 loss to the Orioles, and several of his at-bats came in key spots. Two strikeouts looked especially poor, with off-balance swings that showed how badly his timing has slipped. In a game where the Yankees again failed with runners in scoring position, Chisholm’s empty trips stood out.
The rough night added to a slump that has moved beyond a short-term dip. Chisholm is now 8-for-48 in his recent stretch, with only one extra-base hit. Through 41 games, he is batting .201 with a .603 OPS, a 72 wRC+ and a 29.3% strikeout rate. That production falls far below expectations for a player coming off a 30-30 season in 2025 and speaking openly about a possible 50-50 push this year.
The underlying numbers tell the same story. His expected slugging sits at .319, his barrel rate at 6.1% and his hard-hit rate at 36.0%. His discipline remains similar to last year, but the damage has disappeared.
Amed Rosario at second base: what he brings and what he costs
The most available internal option is Amed Rosario. He is on the active Yankees roster, plays both shortstop and second base, and hits right-handed, which provides a platoon balance against the left-handed Chisholm. He has been in the major leagues since 2017 with the Mets, Cleveland, and Minnesota before joining New York. He handles both middle infield spots competently.
The limitation is offense. Rosario has never been a high-OBP hitter. He does not walk. He has no real power ceiling. Replacing Chisholm full-time with Rosario means trading a slumping hitter with a 30-30 track record for a hitter with a lower floor and a much lower ceiling. The Yankees would be solving one problem and creating another.
The more realistic use of Rosario is strategic rather than wholesale. Against specific pitchers or in late-game situations where his defense is more valuable than the offensive profile, Rosario makes sense. A full-time platoon with Chisholm against left-handed pitching, where Chisholm has struggled badly this season with a .125 average, is a more surgical deployment. It keeps Chisholm’s tools available while protecting him from his worst matchup. The Yankees do not need to remove Chisholm from the roster to use Rosario effectively.
Max Schuemann offers defense but an unproven bat
Max Schuemann is the other in-house name. He started at shortstop Monday when Caballero sat out and handled it without issue. His defense is competent at both middle infield positions. His bat has not established itself in parts of three big league seasons. The Yankees cannot address an offensive problem at second base by replacing a slumping hitter with one who has produced less. Schuemann is a fill-in and a defensive option. He is not a fix.
Oswaldo Cabrera and the Triple-A alternatives
At Triple-A, Oswaldo Cabrera is the most interesting option. He has gone 14-for-36 with a 1.032 OPS over his last nine games at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre after a slow start. He plays second base, shortstop, third base and outfield corners. That versatility matters even more with Caballero now dealing with a finger injury. Anthony Volpe is also at Triple-A but has gone 4-for-24 with a .472 OPS and does not play second base. Top prospect George Lombard Jr. profiles as a shortstop or third baseman. Putting him at second base wastes his best tool, which is his arm.
What the Yankees are most likely to do
The most realistic short-term path for the Yankees does not involve replacing Chisholm outright. It involves managing him more carefully. That means sitting him against tough left-handed starters where he has been at his worst, giving Rosario spot starts in those matchups, and reducing the pressure on Chisholm to carry at-bats he is currently losing.
Chisholm’s stolen base production is real. His defensive value at second base is above average. His power, when it arrives, changes games. The Yankees are not going to erase a 30-30 season from the calculus because the first six weeks have been rough. They have seen this kind of slump before from talented players who eventually broke out.
But the current arrangement, starting Chisholm against every pitcher regardless of handedness and letting him hit through 0-for-4 nights without accountability, is also not sustainable. The Yankees need the second base position to produce. Their alternatives are thinner than the question implies. The most honest answer is that Rosario is a band-aid, Schuemann is a stopgap, Cabrera is interesting, and Chisholm is still the best option at second base if he can rediscover the version of himself that existed twelve months ago.
What do you think?
