Ryan McMahon played 1,010 regular-season games, came to the plate 3,824 times, and hit 140 home runs wearing a Rockies uniform.
The team drafted him in 2013 out of Mater Dei High School in Southern California when he was 18. He spent parts of 13 seasons with the organization.
On July 25, he was traded to the Yankees.
Overnight, “RyMac” went from the worst team in baseball to the most storied franchise in the history of the game. He went from a team that must go 35-19 just to avoid its third straight 100-loss season to a team with World Series aspirations.
The 30-year-old third baseman went from player-friendly, laid-back Coors Field to Yankee Stadium, where baseball is a religion and failure is not an option. In LoDo, the most rabid fans are often there to cheer for the Rockies’ opponent. If you bomb in the Bronx, the fans will let you know their displeasure and spice it with some choice words.
“It’s been a whirlwind, for sure,” McMahon said Friday from his hotel in Miami, where the Yankees opened a three-game weekend series against the Marlins.
The Yankees desperately needed McMahon’s glove at third base, and they’re counting on him to produce at the plate. So far, so good. In his first six games, he hit .400 (8 for 20) with two doubles and four RBIs. His overall numbers this season — .227/.326/.408 slash line, 16 homers, 39 RBIs — are pedestrian. But after an awful March/April in which he hit .147 and struck out 43 times at a 35% rate, McMahon started to look like a player who could help the Yankees.
On Wednesday, he hit a walk-off flyball that fell for a game-winning single in the 11th inning of New York’s 5-4 victory over the Rays at Yankee Stadium. He received a hero’s welcome at home plate from teammates, and the notoriously tough New York media gave him a thumbs up.
“It was super cool,” McMahon said. “It was a back-and-forth game. It was crazy. We were down in the eighth and came back. Down in the ninth and came back. Down in the 10th and came back, and then won it in the 11th.
“Wild game. I just happened to come up in the right situation and I got the job done.”
The early reviews are in about the trade, and so far, the critics have been kind, and McMahon likes the intensity of baseball in the Bronx.
“You definitely feel that,” he said. “You feel how much passion there is in the entire city and the organization and what they are doing there. I don’t know if ‘intimidating’ is the right word, but I didn’t know quite what to expect. I’m sure that there’s more that I have to learn on that front, but so far I’ve just been playing baseball as usual.”
McMahon’s new teammates, understanding the big stage McMahon was thrust upon, have been supportive.
“There are a lot of really good guys on this team,” he said. “I think they’re aware of the stage and what the city brings and all of that stuff, because they have been overly nice and overwhelmingly welcoming to me and the other new guys. I feel like there is a real, conscious effort from a lot of them to make us feel comfortable and help us assimilate.”
There were persistent rumors over the last two years that the rebuilding Rockies would trade McMahon, who’ll make $16 million in 2026 and again in ’27 before he becomes a free agent. McMahon knew about the rumors, of course, but the trade still caught him off guard.
“I was a little surprised that it actually happened,” he said. “It was definitely a bittersweet moment. I created a lot of really good relationships in Colorado, not just with my teammates, but with the front office, coaches, scouts, training staff, reporters. It’s a little bittersweet to leave all of that, but, obviously, I’m extremely excited to be with the Yankees and be in the playoff hunt.”
Frustrated Rockies fans hoping, or expecting, McMahon to bash his former team shouldn’t hold their breath. He’s too classy to do that. Plus, his affection for the organization is genuine. He also believes the Rockies aren’t that far from turning the corner.
But he’s a Yankee now, and that brings a special cachet.
McMahon wore No. 24 in Colorado, but he was thrilled when he discovered that uniform No. 19 was available in Yankee pinstripes. McMahon picked that number in tribute to his father, Jim, and his favorite Rockies teammate, Charlie Blackmon.
Slipping on his Yankees jersey for the first time gave McMahon pause.
“When you start thinking about it — the names of the guys who have worn the uniform in that city — it makes you take a step back and think, ‘This is pretty sweet, this is pretty surreal,’ ” he said.
Is he in a place where he can help the Yankees?
“I would definitely like to think so,” he said. “I definitely think of myself as a good ballplayer and I’m just going to go out there and do the best I can.”
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