Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images

The New York Yankees found themselves staring down the barrel of a tough loss on Wednesday, with the scoreboard reading 3-1 in the eighth inning against the San Diego Padres. Things weren’t looking pretty. The Bronx crowd was quiet, the dugout tense. Enter Trent Grisham—a name that, until this season, floated somewhere between “solid role player” and “occasional spark.” But 2025 has a different ring to it.

The At-Bat That Lit Up the Bronx

With one out and the Yankees needing a miracle, Grisham stepped in to face Jason Adam, a reliever whose changeup is usually more ghost than pitch. Adam danced around the edges of the strike zone with three of them. Grisham swung through the first, took the second outside, then fouled off the third. One ball, two strikes. On the fourth try, Adam went back to the well once too often.

Grisham turned on it like he’d seen it coming since breakfast—launching a moonshot into the right-field seats. Game tied. Stadium alive again. It was his tenth homer of the year, and with it, his OPS surged to 1.016—a number usually reserved for perennial MVP candidates, not someone who had never cracked .808 before this season.
Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports
New Tools, New Results

So, what changed? According to MLB Network analyst and longtime big leaguer Chris Young, a lot. Young says Grisham isn’t just having a hot streak—he’s transformed. He’s in the mold of late bloomers who figured it out mid-career, like J.D. Martinez and Justin Turner, who went from roster filler to lineup anchor seemingly overnight.

Watch Grisham now and you see a hitter who’s not just guessing anymore. His swing is tight and efficient, like someone trimmed all the fat. He’s laying off pitches outside the zone, punishing those in it, and logging quality plate appearances that suggest this isn’t just luck—it’s evolution. His 187 wRC+ is a career-high, and that’s while patrolling center field like he owns it.

The Maturity Behind the Metrics

The most compelling part? This doesn’t feel like a fluke. Sure, there’s always a chance the numbers come back to Earth, but something about Grisham’s approach feels sustainable. There’s a calm to him now—a sense that he understands his own game in a way he never did before. The swing, the patience, the power, the career-high 82 percent contact rate—it all adds up to a player who looks like he finally caught up with his own potential.