Yankees Magazine: Rare Import

For baseball fans -- particularly those whose teams have a legitimate shot at making the postseason -- the Trade Deadline can feel a lot like a holiday, the day you find out what the baseball gods have given you. This year, Ryan McMahon was one of those proverbial presents under the tree.

The Yankees’ new third baseman was drafted by Colorado in 2013 and debuted four years later. He signed a six-year deal with the team prior to the 2022 season and was building a life in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. And sure, he heard the whispers, picked up on the rumblings, understood that the 2025 Rockies weren’t going to be adding big-time players at the Trade Deadline. Still, when you show up to the office one day and are told that you will now be working a couple time zones away, it can be a shock.

Fortunately, the 30-year-old Californian has a cool demeanor well-suited for going with the flow. And with the Yankees seeking some stability at the hot corner, the hope is that he’ll have a long, successful run in the Bronx. Last month, during a taping of the New York Yankees Official Podcast, McMahon chatted about his path to becoming one of the game’s elite defenders and making the most of his new opportunity. Subscribe to the podcast at the platform of your choice, or by visiting yankees.com/podcast.

YANKEES MAGAZINE: It has been a few weeks now since the trade that brought you to town. What is your take on New York so far?

RYAN MCMAHON: It’s been awesome. The city, it’s a different beast, that’s for sure, coming from Colorado, but nothing I don’t think I can handle. And it’s been fun. It’s been exciting.

YM: Let’s talk about high school for a second because you played at Mater Dei, and that place is something, man. You played baseball and football there, correct?

RM: Yeah.

YM: We know some of the huge NFL names that came out of there: Bryce Young, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Matt Barkley, Matt Leinart. What’s it like to be a high school athlete with that kind of lineage behind you?

RM: Yeah, it’s a huge line, obviously, at the quarterback position, but a lot of great athletes have come through there. We had a legendary coach, Bruce Rollinson. He changed my life for the better. I know he changed a lot of guys’ lives who have come through that program. So, I think the deep tradition, the pride that they take in their football program, it’s life-changing, and it was awesome to be a part of.

YM: Who are some of the biggest names that you played with? Baseball and football?

RM: When I was there, dude, our baseball team, we were really good. We were No. 1 in the nation. Our starting nine was going Division I. Not a lot of guys made it past that stage, but they were good college players. Football-wise, Thomas Duarte played in the NFL. But we weren’t very good. It was our first time not going to the playoffs in like 28 years. We broke the streak.

YM: How California are you? Were you a surfer, or whatever we might think of as “California” on this coast?

RM: Yeah, you kind of had to be a little bit to try to fit in. I played a lot of beach volleyball. We’d have football practice starting at like 6 in the morning. As soon as football practice was done, basically the whole team was going to the beach and hanging out for the day.

YM: What were you like as a baseball player? You were a second-round pick, so the answer is obviously “good.” But how would you scout 17-year-old Ryan McMahon?

RM: I was really raw. I didn’t really put it together until my senior year. But I had some tools, could hit a little bit. The defense was really, really bad, so I don’t know how people thought I’d be an OK defender one day. I was really bad at it but worked really hard, got some good coaches. I would just say I was a goofy little baby giraffe out there on the field.

YM: Defense is reactive in a lot of ways. Or defense, I should say, looks reactive, but obviously there’s so much in how you prepare to get to the spot where you make the reaction easier or quicker. When we watch Yankees games right now with you at third base, we don’t see raw. We see excellence. How did you do that? And how do you continue to do that?

RM: It was a lot of reps, man. Like I said, I wasn’t a great defender. I think in Low-A, I made like 40-plus errors. High-A, 40-plus errors again. I got with a really good coach. His name’s Jerry Weinstein. He’s a legend in the coaching world. And he just beat it into me. We took ground balls every day. We’d be yelling at each other, we’d be going at it, but he really cared about me and got me a lot better. And he taught me that as long as I practice every single little thing, it’s going to show up in the game.

YM: Is the goal with all those reps to take your brain out of it and just make it reactive? I keep going back to that word, but are you training yourself to put your glove in the right place and know that the ball will end up there?

RM: For me, personally, I want to put myself in every position. During the offseason, I’ll go out there, and I won’t field the ball. I will literally just have the ball in my glove, and I’ll lay down and I’ll put myself in a different position. I’ll just kind of go, OK, if this ball backed me up, this is where it would end up. I practice finishing the play. A lot of guys can get to the ball, but the play is finishing it. You have to get the out. You only get the out if you can get the ball over to first base in an effective manner.

YM: Shifting gears, I think it’s very normal to be provincial as a baseball fan. And so, we can say Ryan McMahon was “rescued” from the Colorado Rockies by the New York Yankees, or something like that. But the Rockies are the team that gave you your start. The Rockies are where all of your professional baseball memories were until this last month or so. Whatever the record, whatever the frustrations, how difficult is it when that moment comes, and you’re walking away from the only place you’ve known?

RM: I don’t know how else to describe it other than bittersweet. It’s like leaving home for the first time. You’re very comfortable there. You know everybody by name when you walk in, those sorts of things. You know how your day is going to go, who you’re going to see, what you’re going to do along the entire way. I grew up there a lot. Grew up as a man, learned who I was over there.

My first couple of years, we got to go to the playoffs, and that city is incredible when there’s playoff baseball going on. But joining a team like the New York Yankees, with high expectations every single year … there’s a lot of pride in this building. I’ve felt that already.

YM: During the rough times in Colorado, what were the things that you leaned on? I mean, you’re a professional, you’re paid well, fine. You know what’s expected of you. But the Rockies hadn’t won more than 75 games since 2018. How are you staying sharp mentally?

RM: I was very fortunate. I had older guys like DJ LeMahieu, Charlie Blackmon, Trevor Story, who I really leaned on and learned from. And I felt like those guys were really good at leaving whatever happened yesterday in the past, not worrying about the next couple days and just focusing on what they needed to do that day to try to win. And honestly, a lot of them dove back into their teammates. I think if you’re trying to help somebody else be better, you’re not only holding yourself to a higher standard, but you’re also doing some good for the team. So, hopefully, I helped some of those guys over there. I definitely tried to do it every single day. And I feel like if you can dive into the team and just focus on that day, that’s probably the only way that you can get through it.

YM: What are some things that you learn about yourself when you’re traded?

RM: I should probably ask my wife that! She was a little frustrated with how calm I was about it all. I was really focused on, like I just said, taking it day by day. I tried my best not to read everything. I saw my name out there, those sorts of things. But I think I did a really good job of just showing up and focusing on playing baseball and letting it work itself out. But it drove my wife crazy. She got zero information out of me because I did not want to talk about it. And then I showed up one day, and they told me I was going to New York.

YM: In baseball, we’re told that it’s so important to think of yourself as part of the unit, part of the team. Your entire experience is believing that you’re Ryan McMahon, Colorado Rockie. And suddenly, you’re Ryan McMahon, New York Yankee. Do you have to change anything about your own perception of yourself when everything you’ve known in baseball is suddenly turned upside down?

RM: For me, not necessarily. My family keeps me very grounded. My in-laws, my brother-in-law, my brother, my sister, they have always just treated me as Ryan McMahon the person. So, I have always tried to just be that. Baseball is just something I do, and I put my heart and soul into it, but at the end of the day, I’m a dad, I’m a husband, I’m a big brother, I’m somebody’s son. Those are things I take a lot of pride in, how I treat people. People will remember how you made them feel, right? Unless you’re Aaron Judge, they won’t remember every single thing you did on the field. For me, it’s more about how I make people feel on a daily basis.

YM: You have a daughter who’s a year and a half old, so you have some responsibilities at home. But as you adjust to this new place, do you feel like a city guy? Are you the type of person who wants to hit the restaurants, who wants to explore the culture when you have an opportunity?

RM: I’m all in, man. My wife and I, we spent the off-day here exploring. We went to Central Park, walked around. I’m excited to dive into it, learn about the city. It’s a very special place. The way that this fan base takes their baseball, the way that the city is with everything, that’s just kind of all-encompassing with it.

YM: Whenever a Rockies player is on the move, obviously the home-road splits come up, and it makes people wonder who this player actually is. I think one part that’s talked about a little less, though, is how does playing in Coors Field for 81 games affect you in the other 81 games? It’s not just that the home games can inflate the stats. Does the way balls break differently in your home park mean that things are inevitably harder away from home in ways that can distort those splits? Is that part left out of the conversation?

RM: I dove into the analytics a bunch. There’s a bunch of things I could bore you with. But it feels like you’re playing in two completely different leagues.

YM: You kind of are!

RM: Yeah, literally. So, I’ll throw this out there: Fastball velocity at Coors -- say somebody’s throwing 98. The plate speed on the road will be 92, 93. At Coors, that plate speed’s going to be 95, 96. So, fastballs actually play harder at Coors. Then you go to breaking-ball stuff. Well, the breaking balls don’t break nearly as much. They hold that same three miles an hour extra. So, they’re breaking differently. Then you go on the road, they’re breaking way more. Your timing is just different; different things like that. You’ve got to be locked in to be going back and forth.

YM: How do you prepare for that? We hear about the Trajekt machines and things like that. When you’re a Rockies player, do you need to amp that stuff up in both directions to account for the differences that you’re going to be facing? Do you really have to change your preparation in terms of home versus road?

RM: I think so. We would set the Trajekt for the breaking motions at Coors, and then the last couple of days, we would change it to sea level before we’d leave, trying to just find that middle ground.

YM: You have been known to be a streaky hitter throughout your career. When you’re locked in, what are you feeling or seeing at the plate?

RM: I’m feeling sexy up there. I’m letting it all hang out. There’s very little fear. It’s really enjoyable, and it’s fun baseball.

YM: Do you feel a hot streak when it’s coming on?

RM: I do. I feel like you always feel like that though, right? You should always feel close. You should always have that confidence that you’re close. Every day, I’m telling myself I’m locked in, ready to go. And dude, as a baseball player, even when you don’t feel good, you have to go find a way. The fans don’t care; your teammates don’t care. You might be in the big spot that night that can change the game. So, you’d better be telling yourself that you’re feeling good and you’re the best guy out there.

YM: What does the best version of Ryan McMahon look like?

RM: I think personally, for me, it’s just being a team guy. I’m locked in on defense. I’m trying to show my teammates that, “Hey, I’m here for you guys every single pitch.” I think playing defense is a mental commitment to your team. And then at the plate, just doing whatever I can do, man. Getting the job done. If it means scoring a guy, if it means dropping a bunt down, whatever. I try to leave my ego at home and just play the best kind of baseball I can.

YM: As we’re talking, the Astros were just in town. In the first inning on Friday night, Jose Altuve comes up, and Yankees fans are going absolutely crazy, riding him. And then Carlos Correa, same thing, just all the vitriol in the world. When you’re standing at third base hearing that on an August night, is there just a sense of, “Wait a minute, something’s different here …”

RM: Oh, I love it. I love it, man. They don’t forget. It feels like the fans have our back to an extreme, and it’s awesome playing here, feeling those Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday games, seeing the Stadium packed. It’s something I’ve never experienced before. It’s awesome.

YM: How does that fire you up?

RM: Dude, it brings a little bit more energy, right? You feel that adrenaline more. I’ll tell you what, after these games, I’ve been exhausted. But when I’m on the field, I’m feeling an energy that I haven’t felt in August in a long time.

YM: People talk a lot about the culture here, but we don’t see what goes on behind closed doors. What has been your impression of the Yankees’ clubhouse culture so far?

RM: For me, it’s just been seeing how tight these guys are. In this kind of market where, let’s be honest, everything’s scrutinized to an extreme, seeing how the guys lean on each other, man, it’s been incredible. Just seeing how they use each other; they all have each other’s backs. They’ve had mine since I walked in the door. Coming into a locker room like this, with an Aaron Judge, a Giancarlo Stanton, a Max Fried, a Cody Bellinger … to know that those guys genuinely care about you and want you to feel welcome is incredible.

YM: When you show up here for the first time on that Saturday morning, and you look around and there are 30 writers in the clubhouse just standing there waiting, how jarring is that for you?

RM: It’s just different, man. In Colorado, you’d be on a first-name basis with everybody. It’s just going to take me a little bit longer to learn everybody’s names.

YM: You were doing the rounds, though, shaking everyone’s hand, introducing yourself.

RM: I feel like you have to, man. They’re trying to do their jobs, right? Their job is to report on the team. Whether they write something good or write something bad about you, you can’t take it personally. They’re doing their jobs, and we’re in here just trying to do our jobs to the best of our ability.

YM: Do you think about what an October ride on this wave would be like?

RM: I’ve seen it on TV plenty. So, I’m definitely excited and pulling for that to be us.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Jon Schwartz is the deputy editor of Yankees Magazine. This story appears in the September 2025 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.