Since we began our Yankees’ birthday series at the start of the new year, we’ve generally gone back in time to celebrate a Yankee from the distant past. However today, we don’t have to go back very far at all. In fact, we’ll almost certainly see this player take part in further games as a member of the Yankees this season.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. is one of the brighter lights in the Yankees’ lineup. Today also happens to be his 28th birthday, so let’s look back at the Bombers’ current second baseman.
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Jasrado Hermis Arrington “Jazz” Chisholm Jr.
Born: February 1, 1998 (Nassau, Bahamas)
Yankee Tenure: 2024-current
While it’s an emerging sport, baseball is hardly the biggest in Chisholm’s birthplace of the Bahamas. However, he was drawn to the game as a child. His grandmother, who was a member of the Bahamas national softball team taught it to a young Jazz and would practice with him. (And apparently will still call him after every game with advice and well wishes.) The lessons turned Chisholm into a full-blown fan, who would watch highlights of Ken Griffey Jr., Barry Bonds. and other stars of the time.
Chisholm moved stateside for a couple years to attend high school in Wichita, Kansas, before returning to the Bahamas and enrolling at a sports academy. He also developed into quite the baseball player himself, and eventually signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks as an international free agent in 2015.
As he began to play in the minors, Chisholm started to develop into a a big deal of a prospect. By 2019, he started to crack Top 100 prospect lists. However, he soon found himself on the move. At the 2019 Trade Deadline, the Diamondbacks traded him to the Marlins for pitcher Zac Gallen in a rare win/win deal involving prospects.
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Chisholm would make his MLB debut in the 2020 COVID season, and appeared a bit in the Marlins’ unexpected run in that year’s expanded playoffs. He then made the team out of spring training the following season. His combination of speed, some power, and a whole bunch of flashiness quickly got him on the radar around the sport. By 2023, he was selected as the cover athlete for MLB: The Show.
However, the third part of that equation often made him a target, even in his own clubhouse. Chisholm drew the ire of some Marlins’ veterans, especially Miguel Rojas, now of the Dodgers. The young star’s fashion sense seemed to irk Rojas in particular, who reportedly destroyed a couple pairs of custom cleats Chisholm had made. Things got so bad that then-Marlins manager Don Mattingly had to call a team meeting to try and resolve the issues.
On the field, Chisholm broke out with a All-Star season in 2022. The following season, the Marlins even tried playing him in center field to make room for trade acquisition Luis Arraez. Advanced metrics didn’t grade Jazz out as a disaster, and that alone shows the raw talent he possesses.
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As 2024 came along, trade rumors started to surface, as they so often do for Marlins’ players — especially given the controversial front-office change from Kim Ng to Peter Bendix despite the team’s Wild Card berth in 2023. In the end, the Yankees were the team that pulled off the move to land Chisholm, sending prospects Agustín Ramírez, Jared Serna, and Abrahan Ramírez to Miami.
On a new team, and one that has seemingly been much more willing to let Jazz be Jazz, Chisholm made an immediate impact. He hit two home runs each in his second and third game as a Yankee and quickly won people over. Over the course of his 46 games with the 2024 Yankees, Chisholm posted a 133 wRC+ and hit 11 homers, taking him to a career high 24 for the year. Looking to try and put their best lineup on the field, the Yankees also moved him over to third base. While it wasn’t always pretty, it did help accommodate Gleyber Torres at second, and the Yankees went on a deep playoff run. In the postseason, Jazz didn’t quite replicate his regular season results, but did hit a home run in Game 5 of the World Series, prior to everything going wrong. Along the way that October, he also managed to alienate the entire city of Kansas City for being correct.
This past year, having moved back to the keystone, Chisholm followed up with another stellar campaign in his first full season as a Yankee. He topped the 30 home run mark for the first time in his career, as he became the third Yankee to ever join the 30/30 Club (alongside Bobby Bonds and Alfonso Soriano) while posting a 126 wRC+ and 4.4 fWAR. He also won his first career Silver Slugger and earned his second All-Star nod as well.
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As for the future, Chisholm will be back for the Yankees in 2026, but is set to be a free agent after the season. While that will probably lead to trade rumors at points, it would be tough for the Yankees to improve on the production that they’ve gotten from him at second. He also seems to fit in well in this particular clubhouse, and it’s been pretty easy to jump in a root for him. Happy birthday, Jazz!
See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.