Is Jazz Chisholm About To Join One Of Baseball’s Rarest Clubs

Jazz Chisholm Jr. has a month left to do something very special. The Yankees second baseman is staring down the chance at a legitimate 30–30 finish.

He has the thump, hitting his 26th home run of the season Thursday night against the White Sox. 

Statcast has Jazz living in the damage zone with a barrel rate around 16–17%, a hard-hit rate mid-40s, and an average exit velocity right around 89–90 mph. His expected production backs it up, too. His xwOBA hovering in the .37s, the profile of a middle-order bat who’s squaring balls at ideal launch angles far more often than a year ago. This isn’t smoke and mirrors.  He’s earning the loud contact.

Now the wheels.

 He’s at 23 steals already, leading a newly frisky Yankee running game, and he’s doing it with real foot speed. His sprint speed is  about 27.7 ft/sec, comfortably above league average. Since late July, he’s also been running hot (and perfect) on the bases, part of a broader team shift toward pressure and opportunism after the break. 

Statcast’s “standard” panel has his 2025 slash-and-dash neatly captured: OBP in the .330s, OPS in the low-.820s with those 20-something homers and 20-something steals—a power/speed blend the Yankees flatly needed this summer. The aesthetics match the spreadsheet.

Chisholm has always been talented, but he’s shaped himself into a dangerous offensive player. 

What changed? 

Partly health and position clarity (moving back to second has simplified the daily load), partly approach: more consistent swing decisions, more balls hit in the sweet-spot band, and the kind of barrel rates that travel in any park, any weather. That’s why the expected metrics (the stuff that strips out noise) love him. 

So, 30–30—does he get there? 

He needs four homers and seven steals down the stretch. 

His recent form says it’s on the table.  He’s flexed a power uptick with a steals surge over the last few weeks. The Yankees don’t need Jazz to carry the offense, but they need him to be a big part of it.  He can tilt a game in the third inning…and again in the eighth.