By now, it’s safe to say that third baseman Ryan McMahon has met expectations on the defensive end since landing in New York via trade last year. The offense, however, has been a big problem so far, as Sam Chapman recently pointed out. Last year, the third baseman posted an 84 wRC+ with the Bombers, and he was at 79 before Friday’s game against the Blue Jays. That’s actually not that far from his career mark of 88, but New York always expects more from its players.
There might be some light at the end of the tunnel, though. From May 19th until Wednesday, McMahon has turned things around to some extent, and the numbers show it. Over that span, the infielder is hitting .304/.319/.587 with four home runs and a 150 wRC+ in 47 plate appearances. Has he turned a corner? Is that kind of performance sustainable? Let’s examine his profile and what’s under the hood.
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The short answer is no, because McMahon is definitely not a 150-wRC+ player. Life, however, is full of grays, as things don’t always have to be black or white. So the answer to the original question could be that some of his gains could be sustained over time. For example, McMahon boasts an 89th percentile hard-hit rate this year, at 50 percent. That means half of his batted balls leave his bat at a minimum of 95 mph, which makes them much harder to field cleanly. We don’t need to tell you that hitting the ball hard leads to success.
However, even if he hits the ball hard consistently, McMahon is in the 19th percentile in launch angle sweet spot, which are batted balls hit with launch angle between 8 and 32 degrees. If he could live between those two numbers more often, we would be more inclined to believe in a full-on breakout.
Another roadblock to continued success is plate discipline. Even during his hot stretch in the aforementioned span, McMahon is walking just 2.1 percent of the time and striking out at a 34 percent clip (last night’s game not included). That’s hard to stomach and doesn’t bode well for the future.
If you want to know whether what he’s currently doing can be sustainable or not, the wOBA and xwOBA gap might give us an idea. It’s not the be-all, end-all, but it helps us understand where we are. Since May 19th, the lefty hitter boasts a .389 wOBA, but a .349 xwOBA. It means that he is overperforming a bit, but the newfound power has made a difference for the better. The .040 gap says that he’s playing a bit over his head, but the xwOBA on itself isn’t bad at all.
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McMahon can hit the ball over the fence, and it’s not just short-porch cheapies to right field at home:
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To sum up, McMahon is still wildly inconsistent and keeps striking out a lot, but at least he has shown much more power since May 19th. There’s still a lot of work to do in the plate discipline department, but if you ask the Yankees, they would probably take the over-the-fence power even if it comes with precious few walks and lots of whiffs. The Yankees sure would be happy if McMahon could be an 85-95 wRC+ hitter with elite third base defense and consistent 20-25-homer power. Heck, you can even throw the ‘consistent’ part away, because it might be unrealistic.
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