The New York Yankees are in a bad spot right now. They’ve lost eight of their last ten games. The Tampa Bay Rays have won seven of their last ten. That five-game swing has turned a division lead into a 1.5-game deficit. And the biggest black hole in the lineup is sitting behind the plate.
Austin Wells has been one of the worst hitters in baseball this season. His batting average is .155. His on-base percentage is .255. That is not a typo. He’s been solid defensively, sure, but you can’t carry a catcher hitting .155 on a team that has World Series expectations. The front office knows this. The question is what they do about it.
Ryan Jeffers Makes Too Much Sense to Ignore
Jeffers is having a career year at age 29. Before breaking a hamate bone, he was getting on base at a .408 clip. That’s not a fluke either. His underlying numbers across Baseball Savant are red across the board, not just in on-base categories like last season. He had 21 homers in 2024 and seven in just 37 games this year before the injury.
The injury is the complication. He’ll be back before the trade deadline according to medical reports, but there’s always risk with a hand injury for a hitter. Still, the Yankees don’t need Jeffers to be a hero. They need him to get on base and be an average defender. That alone is a massive upgrade over what they’re getting now.
ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel and Jeff Passan noted that Jeffers is in his walk year and has worked to become an average defensive catcher. His whole offensive profile has turned red. If he comes back and keeps it up, he could impact a pennant race before hitting free agency.
The alternative is sticking with Wells and hoping Aaron Judge’s return fixes everything. That’s a risky bet for a team that leads the majors in home runs but ranks 12th in on-base percentage. Power is great. Getting on base is how you sustain success over 162 games.
Luis Arraez Fixes the On-Base Problem Even If It Creates a Lineup Puzzle
The Yankees lead baseball with 122 home runs. They’re seventh in runs scored. The math there is simple: they don’t get on base consistently enough. Arraez is hitting .326 this season. He’s never been a power guy, but he’s the best pure contact hitter in the game.
The problem is where to put him. Ben Rice isn’t going anywhere at first base. Paul Goldschmidt has been a revelation at DH, with 14 homers in 208 at-bats after hitting only 10 all of last season. At 38, there’s no guarantee that keeps up, but you don’t bench a hot bat.
One option: move Jazz Chisholm back to third base. It wouldn’t be great defensively, but the lineup would be significantly scarier. And here’s the thing about Arraez that has changed this year: he’s no longer a defensive liability at second base. McDaniel and Passan wrote that Giants infield coach Ron Washington has turned Arraez from one of the worst defensive second basemen in 2023 into a plus defender in 2026. That changes his entire trade value.
Arraez turns 30 in April. His contact ability has always been elite. Now he’s adding defensive value on top of it. That’s the kind of player who helps a team win in October, not just June.
The Yankees have a World Series level roster in 2026. They just need to stop bleeding games to the Rays. A catcher who can hit and a second baseman who can get on base would go a long way. The front office has two months to figure it out.
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