Kerry Miller of Bleacher Report predicted on Wednesday that the New York Yankees could designate Ryan McMahon for assignment, naming him the club’s top cut candidate amid persistent offensive struggles.
Miller singled McMahon out because of the combination of poor performance and contract baggage: McMahon is slashing.208/.263/.346 with a.609 OPS and six home runs through 58 appearances this season, and he is owed $32 million between this season and next.
The immediate consequence for the Yankees is blunt. Aaron Judge is out for the foreseeable future, removing the lineup’s most reliable source of power, and Miller argued that McMahon’s drop to replacement-level production has opened “a black hole” in New York’s order. McMahon was acquired from the Colorado Rockies last year in a trade that sent Josh Grosz and Griffin Herring to Colorado.
Miller framed the decision as two-fold: the financial commitment and the lack of an obvious internal replacement. He pointed out that the club’s top prospect on the 40-man depth chart, George Lombard Jr., “hasn’t been hitting well since his promotion to Triple-A in late April,” leaving the Yankees with limited low-cost options to take McMahon’s spot.
The numbers underline the friction. McMahon produced a.693 OPS and 20 homers across 154 games during his 2025 split between New York and Colorado, and his best recent showing came in 2021 with Colorado, when he posted a.780 OPS and 23 home runs. That upside, however, has not materialized this season or in his initial work in New York, where he posted a.208 average and a.641 OPS after the trade last year.
For the Rockies, the trade that sent McMahon to New York — and returned Grosz and Herring — now looks like a move from a club described publicly as sellers in an extended rebuild. For the Yankees, the choice is practical: keep a player owed $32 million against the 40-man roster or cut him loose and hope to fill the slot with healthier production, either internally or via a trade or waiver claim.
The gap that matters today is simple and immediate: will the Yankees follow Miller’s prediction and actually designate McMahon for assignment? The club has not announced a roster move tied to that claim; the next official step is a roster decision that will either remove McMahon from the 40-man roster or keep him in place while the Yankees search for other adjustments to an anemic middle of the lineup.
Given the payroll tied to McMahon and Judge’s absence, the most consequential unresolved question is not whether McMahon has struggled — the numbers make that plain — but how the Yankees will reconcile the financial cost with the need for an everyday offensive presence. The team’s choice over the coming days will determine whether Miller’s forecast becomes a roster reality or a headline that fades without action.
