Hidden Value, Part 2: Trent Grisham’s Batting Average Is the Worst Way to Measure Him

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.

Trent Grisham is hitting around .217. To a fan scanning the back of the baseball card, that’s the whole story: a light-hitting outfielder making easy outs. It’s also one of the most misleading numbers on the entire roster. Grisham has built a genuinely valuable big-league career while rarely clearing a .240 average, because batting average happens to be the single worst lens through which to view what he actually does well. That is get on base, hit the ball over the fence, and defend center field at an elite level.

The on-base skills the average erases

Grisham walks, and he walks a lot. That’s why a player hitting in the .210s can still post a strong on-base percentage and remain a productive top-of-the-order option. Last season he ran an OBP near .348 on the strength of his plate discipline. Batting average throws away walks entirely; OBP doesn’t. For a hitter built like Grisham, the gap between the two is the difference between “automatic out” and “table-setter.”

The power is real, and the contact says it’s earned

This isn’t empty on-base value, either. Grisham launched 34 home runs in 2025, second on the Yankees behind only Aaron Judge, and the batted-ball data backs the pop. His barrel rate this season sits above 12%, elite territory, alongside an average exit velocity north of 90 mph and a hard-hit rate in the mid-40s. And there’s a familiar wrinkle: his xwOBA (around .353) actually outpaces his wOBA (around .330), meaning the underlying contact says he’s deserved slightly better than even his results show. Many of his 2025 homers came with the game tied or on the line, the kind of leverage value the slugging column flattens into anonymity.

The defense is Gold Glove caliber

Then there’s the glove, which would carry his value even if the bat went silent. Grisham is a two-time Gold Glove winner who led all outfielders with 17 outs above average in his 2022 award season, supported by some of the best jump and route metrics in the game. Premium up-the-middle defense in center is among the scarcest commodities in baseball, and it’s almost entirely invisible on a hitter’s stat line.

Why “hidden”

Stack it up, on-base ability, real power, elite center-field defense, and Grisham is a clearly above-average regular whose batting average suggests the opposite. He’s the purest kind of hidden-value player: not a guy you have to project or wait on, but one whose existing production is simply measured by the wrong number. Judge him by his average and you’ll miss almost everything that makes him good.

The verdict

Trent Grisham is living proof that batting average and value can point in opposite directions. The walks, the 30-homer power, and the Gold Glove defense add up to a center fielder worth far more than a .217 line implies, and the expected stats say he’s been a touch unlucky on top of it. The box score calls him a weakness. The full accounting calls him an asset.

Next in Hidden Value, Part 3: the Yankees’ most overlooked starter, and the peripherals that prove it.