Ryan Garcia
When the Yankees extended Trent Grisham the $22 million qualifying offer, there was a lot of surprise when he ended up accepting that one-year deal.
A move that was then heavily-scrutinzed for potentially blocking the path for Jasson Dominguez, Grisham would have a lot of noise to answer to in 2026.
Kept at the top of the order, Grisham hasn’t found his power stroke just yet, but he has certainly played the role the team needs him to as a tablesetter.
With eight walks in eight games and a .394 OBP, Grisham looks exactly as he did last season when evaluating his underlying metrics, as this could be another big season for the left-handed outfielder.
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Trent Grisham is Showing Why the Yankees Rolled the Dice on Him For 2026
Last night’s comeback was heavily influenced by the efforts of Trent Grisham, who reached base three times with an RBI knock and a Run Scored as well.
His impact on the offense as someone who drives up the pitch count and makes a decent amount of contact in-zone cannot be ignored, as he’s averaging 4.29 pitches per Plate Appearance while hitting in front of Aaron Judge.
Over 60% of the three-time MVP’s appearances at the plate have come with a runner on-base, not all of them are Trent Grisham but he’s certainly influencing that number a ton with his .394 OBP.
New York has longed for a “real” lead-off man for years and the emergence of Grisham as that patient bat from the left-handed side in front of Judge might be the perfect match.
It’s the kind of lineup fluidity that Aaron Boone envisioned would lead to plenty of runs for this team in 2026, and while they may not repeat as the top scoring team in MLB, they’re expected to be a force.
The Yankees ran back last year’s offense not to remain complacent, but because they believed that unit was incredibly successful and didn’t want to overreact to the seven-game rut in October.
Even during said rut, the team finished as a league-average offense in postseason play, and those numbers tend to not be very predictive for future October outcomes.
We are too early into the 2026 season to determine that the Trent Grisham signing was or was not a success, but he’s got an increasing sample size of excellent play, and the Yankees are certainly happy with what they’ve seen so far.
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