TAMPA — There are players who overhaul mechanics during an offseason or spring training and then cram in every at-bat or inning they can, determined to feel comfortable before the games actually matter.
Ryan McMahon is not in this subset. The Yankees third baseman, who will debut a new batting stance on Opening Day after a winter and a spring devoted to altering his setup, feels adjusted and natural with his new posture.
“I’m ready,” McMahon said before Monday’s exhibition game against the Pirates at Steinbrenner Field. “I’m ready for some games with some juice.”
McMahon is ready with a stance that is noticeably narrower than what was one of the widest stances in baseball last season. According to Statcast, he averaged 42.7 inches between his feet while in the batter’s box last year, the fourth biggest gap in the majors. That stance saw him swing and miss at a 35.2 percent clip, the worst rate among qualified hitters for a player who struck out 189 times between the Rockies and Yankees.
After the season, McMahon sat for a lengthy Zoom with Yankees hitting minds including hitting coach James Rowson and assistant hitting coach Casey Dykes. McMahon is a good pupil, according to Dykes, both because he is receptive to new ideas and because he is clearly talented — a few tweaks can make a large difference.
“You’re always trying to help guys be in a position where they can be multidimensional,” Dykes said. “He can make more contact. He can keep the ball up [for fly balls rather than ground balls]. He obviously hits the ball hard. He sees the ball really well.
“We’re trying to put him in a position to maximize all those things.”
McMahon is a bit of a rarity and has not suffered from the problems that usually plague the strikeout-prone. He rarely chases pitches out of the strike zone, above-average in ignoring pitches that become balls and ranked 24th last season — in between Bryce Harper and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — in drawing walks. His 93.3 mph average exit velocity last season was the 14th best in the game, percentage points behind 13th-place Fernando Tatis Jr.
He swung at the right pitches, ignored the wrong ones and did plenty of damage. He simply whiffed too often. Were his legs too far apart?
“We’re trying to get him in a consistent position to maximize what we think he can do offensively,” Dykes said of McMahon, who himself said the extreme nature of the stance was not a lifelong issue but a bad habit that had “kind of happened over time.”
McMahon, about to embark on his 10th major league season, did not realize how far apart his legs had grown over the years. The tick reappeared recently at camp.
“The coaches brought it up to me immediately,” McMahon said. “Got in the cage the next day, worked it out. Felt great. Went into live [batting practice]. I think I had like six at-bats that day, and I think I walked in one and then hit all the other five balls over 100 [mph].
“It’s going to be something I got to keep my eye on because my feel — if I’m not feeling it right, I can get wide.”
It is rare that a 31-year-old with an impressive résumé — a 2024 All-Star and routinely one of the best third basemen in the sport — qualifies as a bit of a project, but McMahon’s first experience with a new organization and away from the Rockies, along with his sheer talent, makes him particularly intriguing. McMahon, who began his Grapefruit League season 3-for-20 with three doubles, said the new stance feels natural and “sturdier.”
The Yankees have appreciated that McMahon has fully bought in.
“He’s been great,” Dykes said. “A lot of conversations throughout the offseason, a lot of work in camp. … Just like anybody who was going through adjustments during the offseason period, as you go into the season you’re going to continue to try to refine — especially when you’ve been doing something one way for a long time.
“He’s had a lot of success at the big league level already. Sometimes it takes time for things to feel natural, to be able to repeat them without having to overthink it. But he’s been great and working his tail off.
“He looks great.”
