Hidden Value, Part 5: What Four Underrated New York Yankees Teach Us About Reading the Game Right

About this series: Surface stats still drive the conversation, batting average, ERA, RBIs, saves. The numbers on the back of the baseball card shape how most fans judge players. But the expected-stats era tells a different and more accurate story. This “Hidden Value” series goes looking for the New York Yankees whose traditional numbers undersell them: the players whose real worth lives in the gap between what the box score shows and what the underlying data says they’ve actually earned. Each installment takes one overlooked player and uses Statcast, batted-ball data, and run values to reveal the contributor underneath the surface line.

Over four installments, we went looking for value the box score hides and found it in four very different places. Put together, José Caballero, Trent Grisham, Will Warren, and Jake Bird aren’t just four underrated Yankees. They’re four distinct lessons in how the traditional stat sheet can mislead, and how the expected-stats era corrects it. Four players, four blind spots:

José Caballero

Value outside the slash line. A player who’s never hit .240 in a full season ranks among the most valuable Yankees on a rate basis because his worth lives in the two phases the slash line ignores entirely: a major-league-leading stolen-base total and plus-defense across six positions. The lesson: WAR counts three phases of the game; batting average counts a fraction of one.

Trent Grisham

The average versus the player. A .217 hitter who gets on base, hits 30-homer power, and wins Gold Gloves in center is not a weak link, no matter what the average says. His xwOBA even outruns his wOBA. The lesson: batting average throws away walks, undersells power, and can’t see defense, three things Grisham does well.

Will Warren

Overlooked, not overrated. A starter posting top-of-the-staff command and an elite fastball gets lost behind bigger names, but his K-BB% and ERA estimators say the breakout is real and stable. The lesson: context can hide a good player as easily as a bad stat can, and fast-stabilizing peripherals see through both.

Jake Bird

The stretch, not the snapshot. A reliever remembered for the outing that got him demoted has, since a cutter-driven retool, been one of the bullpen’s best arms. The lesson: one bad night anchors a narrative; the body of work tells the truth.

The through-line

The common thread is straightforward: expected stats beat surface stats, and the run values hiding in walks, defense, baserunning, and strikeout-to-walk ratio count every bit as much as the ones that make the highlight reel. The players the traditional box score underrates aren’t flukes or projections, they’re contributors being measured by the wrong number. Caballero’s steals, Grisham’s glove, Warren’s command, and Bird’s cutter are all real, repeatable value that a casual glance at the stat sheet will never catch.

That’s the whole point of Hidden Value. The 2026 Yankees are deeper than their box scores admit, and the edge, for fans and front offices alike, goes to whoever’s willing to look past the back of the baseball card to the data underneath. Find the gap between what a player has done and what he’s earned, and you find value the standings haven’t priced in yet. That closes the Hidden Value series. Thanks for reading along. The real takeaway isn’t four names, it’s a way of looking.