{"id":581788,"date":"2026-02-19T22:01:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T22:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/581788\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T22:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T22:01:15","slug":"yankees-ryan-mcmahon-turns-to-narrower-stance-in-search-for-more-offense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/581788\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees\u2019 Ryan McMahon turns to narrower stance in search for more offense"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA \u2014 Shortly after the 2025 season ended, Ryan McMahon<\/a> hopped on a Zoom call with Yankees<\/a> hitting coach James Rowson and his assistants, Casey Dykes and Jake Hirst.<\/p>\n

As the four chatted, the coaches shared information on McMahon\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen guys get really wide, sometimes hips start to slide a little bit,\u201d Dykes said. \u201cObviously, you want to be able to rotate while keeping your direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

In terms of distance between one\u2019s feet when setting up in the batter\u2019s box, only free agent Wilmer Flores (42.8 in), Pittsburgh\u2019s Bryan Reynolds (43.5 in) and Seattle\u2019s Josh Naylor (44 in) had wider stances than McMahon last season<\/a>. But he said he didn\u2019t always have so much space between his feet and sought to correct the issue over the winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s plenty of video of me in the past where I\u2019m not nearly that wide, and a lot of better things are happening in my swing,\u201d McMahon said, adding that he feels \u201cmore comfortable\u201d now that his feet are closer together.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

McMahon\u2019s tweak followed a disappointing season at the plate, as the defensively exceptional third baseman had an 86 wRC+ \u2013 a mark of 100 is considered league-average \u2013 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\u2019s 35.2 Whiff% and 32.3 K% ranked in the second percentile, and his 21% squared-up rate fell in the 10th percentile.<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old also had a 74.8 in-zone contact percentage, the second-worst mark in baseball.<\/p>\n

But Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone said over the offseason that there is more to \u201cunlock\u201d in McMahon\u2019s offensive profile<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got more leverage from that spot,\u201d Rowson said. \u201cYou can tell his position, he sees the ball well from that spot, and you\u2019re just trying to take advantage of his strength. He\u2019s 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\u2019s on the way to doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Yankees made similar comments about McMahon\u2019s untapped potential after acquiring him last summer \u2014 he hit .208 with a .641 OPS and an 84 wRC+ over 54 games for the Bombers \u2014 Rowson has a point.<\/p>\n

McMahon\u2019s 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%.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 he did so at a 17% clip last season \u2014 and cut down on his strikeouts \u2014 it\u2019s certainly possible that he could, at the very least, climb closer to league-average production.<\/p>\n

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.<\/a> playing out of position for a stretch.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s got a lot of talent,\u201d Boone said of McMahon. \u201cHe knows the strike zone. He\u2019s got power to all fields, so he\u2019s got the ability to really impact the ball. He\u2019s 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\u2019s a guy that not only could hit for some power, as he\u2019s shown throughout his career, but some on-base, hopefully.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just putting myself in a better position to compete all the time,\u201d McMahon said. \u201cI do think that there\u2019s more in there for me, especially, to help this team out, and I think we\u2019re gonna do everything we can to try and make that come out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA \u2014 Shortly after the 2025 season ended, Ryan McMahon hopped on a Zoom call with Yankees hitting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2376],"tags":[31067,5,4,1690,62,2548,2547,1494,23702,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-581788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-yankees","8":"tag-abs","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-yankees","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkyankees","15":"tag-ryan-mcmahon","16":"tag-stance","17":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116099552984552968","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}