Yankees’ Trent Grisham playing more and exceeding expectations

This spring, shortly before Aaron Boone began to notice a more lively Trent Grisham in camp, Brian Cashman said he thought the fourth outfielder was going to play more last year after acquiring him from the Padres alongside Juan Soto. 

Instead, the Yankees’ top three outfielders stayed remarkably healthy and Grisham did not get much run, then struggled when he did, in part because it was the first time he was not getting close to everyday at-bats. 

“So we’ll see how this year plays out,” Cashman said on Valentine’s Day. 

“The talent’s all there, the on-base percentage, a little pop, the fact that he can play great defense and stuff, that’s why we tendered him and retained him. But I don’t think we saw the real version of him because the lanes you would have expected for him to be able to play did not show up and present themselves.” 

But this? Ten home runs in his first 31 games (one more than he had all last year), a 1.017 OPS and a .292 batting average?

Even in the Yankees’ wildest dreams they might not have seen this version of Grisham coming, at least not to this extent. 

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Whatever lanes the Yankees originally saw for him this season, Grisham has since erased them and redrawn them to force his way back into an everyday role.

And even on the rare day when he is not starting in center field, he has still found a way to deliver in key spots — like Wednesday night, when he came off the bench to crush a game-tying, two-run home run off tough reliever Jason Adam in what became a 4-3, 10-inning win over the Padres. 

“Just coming up big spot after big spot, making big plays in the field,” Max Fried said. “He’s been playing incredible and a big reason why we’ve come off with the wins that we have.” 

Last month, Boone went as far as saying he did Grisham a “disservice” by not getting him enough reps early last season to keep him in somewhat of a rhythm.

To that point, Grisham has 101 plate appearances this season. He did not reach that number until July 4 last season.

Grisham has cited adjusting to that role and being in a better headspace mentally as the biggest keys to his success early this year. 

While the recent cries for why Grisham was not starting over Alex Verdugo late last season are pure revisionist history — he hit just .190 with a .675 OPS and nine home runs in 76 games — the 28-year-old has made the most of his second chance with the Yankees after they still tendered him a contract in November. 

“Getting to see him get some run last year in [July] was really the one time he got some fairly regular playing time, when Giancarlo [Stanton] was down,” Boone said, referring to a 26-game stretch in which Grisham hit .257 with a .766 OPS. “And he was productive. He did a really good job for us. But really, this spring … I just felt like what I was seeing was just a really live player. I just felt like you even saw a little more on defense, just how he was moving, at-bat after at-bat after at-bat was quality. And that’s all we’ve seen at the start of this season. 

“He goes 0-for the other day, but it’s like, every at-bat is heavy and controlling the zone and getting a lot of good swings off. Just excited the way he’s playing right now.” 

One person who is not shocked at what he is seeing is Devin Williams.

He and Grisham were teammates in the Brewers organization, including at Double-A Biloxi in 2019. Williams remembered Grisham starting off slowly — he hit .215 with a .678 OPS and five home runs in his first 43 games — before taking off and batting .367 with a 1.267 OPS and 21 home runs over his next 54 games, which included a bump up to Triple-A and ended with his first call to the majors. 

That summer’s power numbers are the closest thing Grisham has shown to what he is doing now, with his current 9.9 percent home run rate towering over his 3.1 percent career rate coming into this season. 

“It’s not really a surprise to me; I’ve always thought he was a really good hitter,” Williams said. “To see him doing it and showing what he’s capable of is really cool to see.”