Jazz Chisholm Jr. stood at his locker Wednesday night after elimination and made his pitch. “I love it as a Yankee,” he said. “To see it maybe end here sucks, but it’s part of the business.” The next day he was more direct: “I do hope to be back. This is where I want to be.”
He is 28, he will be 29 on Opening Day 2027, and he is heading to free agency for the first time after returning on a one-year, $10.2 million deal that avoided arbitration. He is also the most marketable everyday player on the roster, which is exactly why this decision will be harder than it should be.
Look at the Season
In 137 games: .231/.312/.399 with 19 home runs, 55 RBI, 41 stolen bases, a 97 OPS+ and 1.7 WAR. At second base he was minus-6 in defensive runs saved.
A 97 OPS+ is below average. Minus-6 DRS at second is below average. Forty-one steals is a real skill and so are 19 homers, but added together this is a league-average player having a good year on the bases, not a core piece you commit years to.
Then There Is October
Chisholm has hit .182 in the postseason in each of his three Yankees seasons. Three years, same number, three times.
This year he made a throwing error in the first inning of ALDS Game 2 that let in a run, finished with two hits for the series and started three of the Yankees’ five playoff games. Aaron Boone put Anthony Volpe at second base in Game 3 instead. That is a manager telling you what he thinks, without having to say it.
The Yankees Already Have the Replacement
This is the part that settles it. Volpe can play second. George Lombard Jr. is a rookie shortstop in the system. New York has internal infield options on rookie-scale money and a long list of veterans hitting the market at once.
Paul Goldschmidt, 39, hit .252/.313/.452 with 18 home runs in 345 at-bats as a platoon first baseman and said, “I’d like to continue playing so we’ll see if that opportunity happens.” Trent Grisham, who accepted a $22 million qualifying offer last winter and then regressed, offered only that “the only thing I can say on it is I love the people here.”
That is three position-player decisions in one offseason for a team that just got swept out of the division series.
The Call
Let him go, and do it without apology. Chisholm is fun, he plays hard and he clearly wants to be a Yankee. He is also a below-average hitter with below-average defense at second base who has not hit in three Octobers, and somebody is going to pay him like the version of himself that exists in highlight packages.
Let that team find out. Spend the money on pitching.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.