Skepticism warranted around Yankees’ early offense

The majority of the New York Yankees’ wins early in the 2026 season have come due to their outstanding pitching. Yes, the offense has had its fine moments, including averaging well over seven runs a game in a series win over the Marlins to kick off April, but for the most part, it’s been an underwhelming start. Now, it’s easy to talk about the short sample size that 15 games represent — you could claim that for such a short span of time, nearly any team is able to look like one of the best or the worst offenses in the sport, regardless of how great it actually is. While all of that is true, there are reasons behind perhaps an extra layer of concern in the back of most Yankee fans’ minds since not all struggles come in the same manner.

Remember when Aaron Judge forgot how to hit for the start of the 2024 season, wrapping up April with a .207 batting average in 31 games? Well, despite the end of that horrific run raising plenty of people’s anxiety levels hoping for him to break through, no one was actually concerned about Judge. He was still Judge. What makes the early struggles of 2026 so worrisome is that, for the most part, we’re witnessing reasonable concerns ahead of the season coming to fruition. Let’s run through some of these problems:

For starters, even with the two runs batted in from José Caballero in Saturday’s 5-4 loss against the Rays, the left side of the infield has been the closest thing to automatic outs that you may find up at the plate. Caballero and Ryan McMahon have gone 9-for-76 with exactly one extra-base hit. Sure, no hitter will continue to put up numbers even remotely similar to this, but it’s also true that the expectation level was quite low for these two positions to begin with. If we go back to the start of 2024, McMahon has a .698 OPS, and that’s having spent the bulk of that period in Coors Field. In an ideal universe, particularly for a contender, Caballero fills the role of a versatile piece off the bench capable of impacting games on the basepaths with his running ability. Being thrust into a starting spot due to Anthony Volpe’s injury might be too much to handle. And that doesn’t even dive into what to expect from Volpe, somewhat of a polarizing figure in his time as a Yankee.

Moving forward, other concerns include Trent Grisham’s inability to do anything other than pile up a few walks, as evidenced by his performance against the Rays on Saturday, when he went 0-for-3 with a pair of free passes. In year seven of his career last season, Grisham delivered a completely new level of production, at least over a full season. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume a significant amount of folks are simply expecting him to revert back to his 2024 self. In actuality, Grisham did show a sustainable path to produce at a solid level, but the longer the wait for him to deliver in 2026, the louder those questions will be.

There is also Jazz Chisholm Jr., a player notorious for inconsistencies throughout his career, whose plate discipline numbers early in 2026 have not matched what we have seen from him since becoming a Yankee —striking out over 30 percent of the time and refusing to walk. However early it is in the 2026 season, it’s quite difficult to completely disregard these shortcomings when they come in such familiar ways.