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1 hour ago
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The New York Yankees are shrinking.
Really, so is most of Major League Baseball. The impact of the ball-strike ABS challenge system is causing heights around MLB to change.
The Yankees certainly didn't avoid it.
Giancarlo Stanton used to be listed at 6-foot-6. He's now 6-foot-5.
Cody Bellinger went from 6-4 to 6-3.
Paul Goldschmidt dropped from 6-3 to 6-2.
Trent Grisham (now 5-10), Austin Wells (6-1), Amed Rosario (6-1) and Randal Grichuk (6-0) are all listed as shorter than they were a season ago, too.
The league is determining the top and bottom of the challengeable strike zone based on a percentage of a given player's official height. So you certainly wouldn't want to be listed as taller than you actually are.
"We’re going to see a lot of height changes this year because, with the rollout of ABS, MLB is now measuring each player's height down to the millimeter," Joe Pompliano wrote on X. "The process is super strict — no shoes, no hats, knees exposed, back against the wall — and to account for potential shrinkage throughout the day, MLB is even requiring all its teams to take measurements between 10 am and 12 pm local time on their appointed day."
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The reality here is that it's unlikely that any of these guys actually got shorter. They should still be the same players they once were.
But players often are listed as just a little bit taller than they are, and now that won't be happening. These should be just about the true heights of each of these Yankees.
It's better to have a properly sized strike zone than to keep the pride of a little extra height.
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