PHOENIX - Ryan McMahon’s bat is making the Yankees ask a question they probably hoped to avoid this late in the season.
The third baseman was supposed to be the steady glove, the defense-first piece who could settle things down on the left side of the infield. Instead, the offense has dragged him into the center of the conversation, and his latest rough night only sharpened the pressure.
At Target Field on Wednesday, McMahon went 0-for-6 with four strikeouts in the Yankees’ 5-4, 13-inning loss to the Twins. New York kept clawing back - Anthony Volpe tied the game with a ninth-inning double, Ali Sanchez put the Yankees ahead in the 10th, and Jose Caballero delivered a sacrifice fly in the 11th - but Minnesota answered each time before Victor Caratini ended it with a walk-off single in the 13th. Tommy Nance got the win, John Schreiber took the loss and there was no save.
McMahon hit seventh and finished the game at .210/.275/.346 with 10 home runs and 34 RBIs in 118 games. He has struck out 101 times, a 29.2% rate, and owns a .621 OPS. The advanced numbers included in the criticism are just as stark: a 77 wRC+ and 0.5 fWAR.
That kind of production is hard to tuck away, especially now. The Yankees entered Friday at 88-64, five games behind Tampa Bay in the AL East, with a postseason berth already locked up. Jazz Chisholm Jr. is still on the 10-day injured list with a right thumb sprain, and Volpe has come back from Triple-A and has been used at second base.
Volpe’s minor league stint gave the Yankees a little more flexibility. He made starts at shortstop, second base and third base while at Triple-A. That does not make him the obvious answer at third, but it does give Aaron Boone another look if Chisholm returns and the infield puzzle gets tighter.
The financial piece adds another layer. McMahon is also tied to a guaranteed $16 million salary for 2027, which means the Yankees are not just weighing his current role - they’re weighing whether the glove and the contract still justify everyday playing time when the bat has been this light.
That is why the conversation around McMahon has turned harsher. Around the Yankees, the question is no longer just whether he should sit more often. It has moved into more uncomfortable territory: whether he could lose his regular job, be pushed off the postseason roster or eventually be designated for assignment.
The comparison getting traction is DJ LeMahieu, whom the Yankees released in July 2025 with roughly $22 million still owed. FanGraphs listed LeMahieu’s final Yankees season at a 94 wRC+, .338 on-base percentage and 24.6% strikeout rate.
McMahon has fallen short of all of that. His .275 on-base percentage and 29.2% strikeout rate mean the Yankees are getting less offense than they got from LeMahieu before deciding he no longer fit.
The situations are not identical. LeMahieu was 36, his role had narrowed, and New York wanted Chisholm at second base.
McMahon is younger and still offers value at third. But the LeMahieu move made one thing clear: guaranteed money does not automatically save a veteran’s spot.
Boone, for his part, has not publicly turned McMahon into a roster warning sign. After the Yankees clinched, he talked about the way the clubhouse handled a difficult season, not about any one player’s future.
“But credit to them for coming together. Through all the ups and downs, they’ve been a together group,” Boone said.
That does not settle McMahon’s place in October. It just separates what fans are asking from what the Yankees have actually decided.
The defense still matters. The numbers in the supplied snapshot list McMahon at minus-1 DRS and plus-1 Fielding Run Value, while Statcast’s live page shows slightly positive overall fielding value. However the metric is sliced, the defensive edge is not enough to cover a .621 OPS.
A third baseman can survive with that kind of bat if the glove is elite and the rest of the lineup is rolling. The Yankees do not have quite that much room while Chisholm is out, and October makes every spot in the lineup more consequential.
Volpe is not a proven major league third baseman, and the Yankees have not said they plan to hand him the job there. Still, his Triple-A reps at third give Boone a real option. His shortstop background also makes the arm-strength concern less of a dealbreaker, even if it does not prove he would be comfortable there in the postseason.
There’s also the Kazuma Okamoto comparison making the rounds among fans. MLB lists the Toronto third baseman at .235 with 33 home runs, 88 RBIs and a .774 OPS, and his four-year, $60 million deal carries a $15 million average annual value.
McMahon’s line - 10 home runs and a .621 OPS at $16 million - looks a lot thinner next to that. It is not a direct apples-to-apples roster decision, since McMahon was already under contract after the Yankees acquired him in 2025 and Okamoto arrived on a separate free-agent track. Even so, the salary gap helps explain why the criticism has grown and why some of it has spilled over toward general manager Brian Cashman.
For now, McMahon is still active, Chisholm’s return remains uncertain, and the Yankees’ infield picture is still moving. There is no verified indication that New York has decided to designate McMahon for assignment or take him off the postseason roster.
But the central issue is obvious enough. The Yankees are no longer asking whether McMahon is slumping. They’re asking how many October at-bats they can afford to give a 77 wRC+ hitter.
New York opens a three-game series Friday at Chase Field against Arizona, and McMahon still has time to change the tone. The runway, though, is getting shorter by the day.
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