More often than not in a 162-game season, a team will either win or lose a game by how well they do with hitting with runners in scoring position (RISP). When you look at the New York Yankees offense, they have the ability to change a game by hitting a home run in any situation. However, can an offense truly have success when that is what they truly rely upon on a consistent basis?
During an interview with YES Network’s Meredith Marakovits during Sunday’s spring game against the New York Mets, Jazz Chisholm Jr. talked about how one of his goals this season was to improve his hitting with runners in scoring position.
“There were a lot of times last year that we runners on in scoring position,” said Chisholm. “I just feel like we hit a lot of home runs, so that’s why we score a lot of runs. I feel like we can build on runners in scoring position and moving runners over a little bit instead of striking out in those positions. I feel like that’s going to help us improve even more than we are right now.”
Before we look at specific examples, let’s look at a team-centric approach from a year ago. In 2025, the Yankees had a good amount of success with RISP. They were tied for fourth in the MLB in home runs (54), third in RBIs (538), fourth in hits (344), and they were second in .OPS (.785). In fact, 16% of the team’s hits with RISP were a home run.
Yes, we are in an era where home runs can be the end-all, be-all in baseball. However, that does not usually mean success. Even though they were in the top five in home runs, they were second in all of MLB in strikeouts in those situations (363 – 27% of the time). They hit .255 as a team (4th in MLB), but it pales in comparison to how the eventual AL East and AL champion Blue Jays did (.292 average, .810 OPS).
This does not mean the Yankees have to completely change their offensive philosophy and they are not going to get players to completely change their plate approaches. However, maybe they can get a couple of players to bring their RISP success to when they hit with runners on. Let’s take a look at two key players that can be X-factors to the Yankees success in 2026.
First, let’s start with Chisholm Jr. The second baseman had a slash line of .208/.290/.376 with 5 home runs and 41 RBIs. However, he had 39 strikeouts (2nd most on New York), which was 31% of his at-bats. While Chisholm did have a career-season last year with home runs (31), 15 of those came with nobody on base.
Chisholm Jr. is a player that is going to be versatile in terms of where Aaron Boone wants to hit him in the lineup. He will have plenty of chances to come up with clutch hits in ‘26. If he can improve on those numbers, he will not only have a career year, but might even get the long-term contract he is looking for.
Another player to focus on at the bottom of the order is Austin Wells. Wells actually had more success a year ago with runners in scoring position (.773) compared to having no runners on (.693). However, 15 of his 21 home runs came with nobody on base in ‘25. The .207 average he had with nobody on base is almost where his overall batting average was (.219).
The Yankees did decide to bring back the offense that did have its fair share of success last year. However, that does not mean that they can’t tweak parts of what was working a year ago. If they can even make marginal improvements on how they did with RISP a year ago, it could go a long way to the team having a successful ‘26 that leads to a division title and hopefully more.
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