Jazz Chisholm Jr. was the Yankees’ marquee trade deadline addition in 2024, but I don’t think anyone could have predicted the immediate impact he would have. He became the first player in franchise history to hit four home runs in his first three games with the team and seven in his first 12. He may have cooled off after that scorching initial run in pinstripes, but he remained one of the lone positive contributors on offense down the final stretch of the regular season.

After learning and even mastering third base on the fly, it appears Chisholm will be heading back to his more natural second base position for 2025. Should he carry over this elite defense from the hot corner back to the keystone while maintaining an above-average bat, Chisholm can play a crucial role as the Yankees attempt to return to the World Series.

2024 Stats: 147 games, 621 PA, .256/.324/.436, 24 HR, 73 RBI, 40 SB 24.5 K%, 8.5 BB%, 110 wRC+, 2.7 bWAR, 4.0 fWAR

2025 FanGraphs Depth Charts Projection: 141 games, 609 PA, .241/.301/.390, 27 HR, 85 RBI, 35 SB, 25.1 K%, 8.3 BB%, 115 wRC+, 3.8 fWAR

The Yankees heaped extra pressure on Chisholm when they allowed Gleyber Torres to sign a one-year deal with the Tigers. Despite Torres’ slow start and suspect defense, he turned his season around to become one of the team’s most impactful hitters in the final couple months. Now without that offensive production, it’s almost like the Yankees expect Chicholm to pick up the slack when you consider the steep drop-off from Torres to the two men effectively replacing him in the lineup — DJ LeMahieu and Oswaldo Cabrera.

Perhaps the reason the Yankees feel so comfortable absorbing the hit in value when going from Torres to some combination of LeMahieu and Cabrera are the rosy projections for Chisholm’s performance in 2025. FanGraphs Depth Charts projections curiously view Chisholm as a third baseman despite the team’s assurance that he will slide back to second. It’s not a perfect translation, but Chisholm’s projected 3.8 fWAR would place him fifth among MLB second basemen behind only Ketel Marte, Marcus Semien, Andrés Giménez, and Xander Bogaerts. He is projected for a career-highs in home runs (27) and RBI (85) and is expected to finish with the seventh-highest stolen base total (35) in the game.

In order to hit his higher percentile projections, Chisholm will need to recapture the magic of his first 12 games in pinstripes rather than the subsequent 34. While a 203 wRC+ and a home-run-every-7.7-plate-appearance clip are likely unsustainable across an entire season, there were changes in process and approach following that initial dozen game sample that caused his wRC+ to level out at 104 across the remainder of the regular season.

When Chisholm first arrived in the Bronx, he seemed eager to make an instant impact. This translated into a free-swinging approach as Chisholm looked to do damage on most pitches in the zone. This came at the cost of elevated strikeout, chase, and whiff rates, but these ill-effects were dwarfed by the frequency with which the ball was leaving the yard.

But then there seemed to be an approach change, Chisholm appearing to focus on paring back those strikeouts and becoming more selective. While the strikeout, chase, and whiff rates improved, the quality of his contact and thus overall production took a sizable hit. By allowing hittable pitches to go by early in the count and then being forced to fight off pitchers’ pitches when behind in the count, Chisholm saw his average exit velocity, barrel rate, pull rate, and groundball rate all get worse.

There is also the question of how his defense will hold up with the switch back to the keystone. Chisholm broke into the league as a second baseman and posted above-average-to-elite defensive production in his first three seasons including a career-best +6 Statcast Outs Above Average in 2021. The Marlins moved him to center in 2023 where he more than held his own before truly blowing expectations out of the water with +8 OAA at third in just 46 games after switching teams — the fourth-highest mark in MLB for the entirety of the 2024 season.

We also have to discuss health. 2024 was by far Chisholm’s healthiest season, his 147 games besting a previous career high of 124 in 2021, and even then he landed on the 10-day IL with a left elbow sprain in August that initially stirred fears of requiring surgery. He missed significant time in 2022 and 2023 to a lower back strain, toe surgery, knee meniscus surgery, and an oblique strain. Given the precipitous drop off from Chisholm to any backup option on the roster, the Yankees need him to avoid getting bitten by the injury bug in 2025.

Given the varying levels of uncertainty surrounding every member of the lineup not named Aaron Judge, Chisholm figures to be a critical factor in determining the trajectory of the team in 2025. If his initial Yankees cameo is anything to go off, we’re excited to see what he can do in Year 2 in pinstripes.