TAMPA — Shortly after the 2025 season ended, Ryan McMahon hopped on a Zoom call with Yankees hitting coach James Rowson and his assistants, Casey Dykes and Jake Hirst.
As the four chatted, the coaches shared information on McMahon’s batting stance, as well as some suggested modifications. McMahon absorbed the info, did some homework on his own, and reached the same conclusion that the instructors had: his remarkably wide stance restricted his hips in 2025.
“When guys get really wide, sometimes hips start to slide a little bit,” Dykes said. “Obviously, you want to be able to rotate while keeping your direction.”
In terms of distance between one’s feet when setting up in the batter’s box, only free agent Wilmer Flores (42.8 in), Pittsburgh’s Bryan Reynolds (43.5 in) and Seattle’s Josh Naylor (44 in) had wider stances than McMahon last season. But he said he didn’t always have so much space between his feet and sought to correct the issue over the winter.
“There’s plenty of video of me in the past where I’m not nearly that wide, and a lot of better things are happening in my swing,” McMahon said, adding that he feels “more comfortable” now that his feet are closer together.
McMahon’s tweak followed a disappointing season at the plate, as the defensively exceptional third baseman had an 86 wRC+ – a mark of 100 is considered league-average – a .214 average and a .693 OPS while splitting his 2025 campaign between the Rockies and Yankees. While he did manage 20 home runs and 53 RBI, McMahon’s 35.2 Whiff% and 32.3 K% ranked in the second percentile, and his 21% squared-up rate fell in the 10th percentile.
The 31-year-old also had a 74.8 in-zone contact percentage, the second-worst mark in baseball.
But Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone said over the offseason that there is more to “unlock” in McMahon’s offensive profile, which has produced an 89 wRC+ and a .738 OPS over a nine-year career. The hope now is that his new stance does the trick.
“He’s got more leverage from that spot,” Rowson said. “You can tell his position, he sees the ball well from that spot, and you’re just trying to take advantage of his strength. He’s always impacted the ball well, so at this point, you just want him to be able to be consistent with that impact more often, and I think he’s on the way to doing that.”
While the Yankees made similar comments about McMahon’s untapped potential after acquiring him last summer — he hit .208 with a .641 OPS and an 84 wRC+ over 54 games for the Bombers — Rowson has a point.
McMahon’s 93.3-mph average exit velocity ranked in the 95th percentile last season, while his 50.5 Hard-Hit% was in the 89th percentile. His 11.9 BB% was in the 87th percentile, and he also had an above-average 25.0 Chase%.
If McMahon, a left-handed swinger with the fortune of playing his home games at Yankee Stadium, could pull the ball in the air more — he did so at a 17% clip last season — and cut down on his strikeouts — it’s certainly possible that he could, at the very least, climb closer to league-average production.
That may not sound like much, but Yankees third basemen combined for a 90 wRC+ a year ago. That included second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. playing out of position for a stretch.
“He’s got a lot of talent,” Boone said of McMahon. “He knows the strike zone. He’s got power to all fields, so he’s got the ability to really impact the ball. He’s a really good athlete. It really comes down to cleaning up some of the swing and miss that rose a little bit on him last year. If we can cut into that a little bit, I think he’s a guy that not only could hit for some power, as he’s shown throughout his career, but some on-base, hopefully.”
Rowson noted that time will tell if McMahon actually has more to offer or if his new stance helps, but the veteran seems excited about its potential.
“It’s just putting myself in a better position to compete all the time,” McMahon said. “I do think that there’s more in there for me, especially, to help this team out, and I think we’re gonna do everything we can to try and make that come out.”
