Alexander Wilson
The New York Yankees have received exactly what they needed from the top of their rotation and the middle of their lineup through ten games. The concern, as it usually is with this team, lives in the margins. Jose Caballero has been overmatched at shortstop. Ryan McMahon has barely made contact. Austin Wells is pressing at the plate. And Trent Grisham, batting leadoff every day, is sitting at .147/.326/.235 with no home runs through his first eleven games.
That surface line is ugly. Everything underneath it is not.
The Surface Number Is Lying
The batting average is the number that tricks people into a panic with Grisham right now, and I understand why. A .147 average from your leadoff hitter is not something you want to look at before your morning coffee. But the underlying contact metrics tell an entirely different story about what is actually happening in his at-bats. His Statcast data shows a .242 expected batting average and a .500 expected slugging percentage, both of which are meaningfully higher than what the box score reflects. When those two numbers diverge that sharply from actual results, the explanation is almost always variance rather than a mechanical problem.
The peripheral numbers back that up. Grisham is striking out at just 16.3%, the lowest rate of his career. He is walking at 20.9%, which is exceptional for any hitter, let alone a leadoff man whose primary job is to get on base and make pitchers work. He ranks in the 91st percentile in barrel rate and hard-hit rate, and in the 98th percentile in chase percentage, meaning he is swinging at almost nothing outside the zone. For a player who has battled plate discipline issues in previous seasons, those numbers represent a genuine improvement in how he is approaching his at-bats.
What this looks like, to me, is a player getting beat by timing variance more than anything else. The weather in early April does not help. Cold nights and inconsistent field conditions affect how the ball carries, and contact that would fall for hits in June is dying on the warning track or getting caught in cold dead air in early spring. Grisham is hitting the ball hard. He is making excellent swing decisions. The results will catch up to what the contact quality is generating.
The Defense Is the Real Thing to Watch
The defense is a more legitimate area to watch. Last season, Grisham graded out below average in center field, and through early 2026 he is sitting at minus-1 outs above average with an arm value ranking in the 11th percentile. Both numbers are influenced by sample size at this point in the year, and center fielders typically need more game action for defensive metrics to stabilize into anything meaningful. But it is worth noting that his defensive profile has not been a strength in recent seasons, and if the below-average grades persist into May and June, the conversation about his fit as an everyday center fielder on a championship-caliber team will get louder.
Why This Resolves Itself
The offensive picture does not concern me. The walk rate alone justifies his place in the leadoff spot right now. A hitter who is walking at 20.9% while posting elite barrel rates and elite chase rates is doing almost everything right. The hits are coming. They always follow when the underlying contact quality is there, and Grisham’s contact quality right now is genuinely strong.
The Yankees are 8-2 with Grisham starting every day in center field. When his numbers normalize, this lineup gets meaningfully better. That is not a worry dressed up as optimism. That is just how variance works.
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