Erik Boland: Yankees' Spencer Jones will have chance to show he belongs
Yankees' Spencer Jones steps to the plate for his first major-league at-bat in the second inning against the Brewers at American Family Field on Friday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Credit: Getty Images/John Fisher
MILWAUKEE — It took an injury to a one-time can’t-miss Yankees prospect to give another who fits the same category his shot at the big leagues.
Spencer Jones, whom the Yankees and their fans have been dreaming on pretty much from the time the club selected the outfielder in the first round of the 2022 draft, got the call every player in the minors hopes one day will come.
And it came shortly after the star-crossed Jasson Dominguez suffered a low-grade left AC joint sprain Thursday after plowing into the wall in left as he made a terrific leaping catch in a 9-2 victory over the Rangers at the Stadium.
Indeed, yet another bad break for the 23-year-old Dominguez provided Jones, who turns 25 next week, his first crack at the majors.
The Yankees threw Jones right into the fire, starting him at DH Friday night against the Brewers and tough righty Jacob Misiorowski, batting sixth (Jones, after seeing a 103.6-mph fastball, struck out on an 89-mph curveball in his first at-bat of the night).
“It’s welcome to the big leagues, for sure,” manager Aaron Boone said with a smile before the game.
And the 6-foot-7, 240-pound lefty-swinging Jones, known throughout his development in equal measure for his prodigious homers and prodigious strikeout totals, appears as if he’s going to get an extended runway to begin proving himself at this level.
That’s because Giancarlo Stanton, placed on the IL with a right calf strain on April 28, doesn’t exactly seem on the fast track for a return.
Before Friday night’s game, Boone indicated Stanton essentially is in the same spot physically as when he went to the IL — able to swing a bat but not yet able to do much with his lower body.
Stanton’s injury was initially the opportunity for Dominguez — who, like Jones, started the year with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre — to get close to getting regular reps in the majors.
Now that opportunity belongs to Jones who, like Dominguez before him, put up numbers the Yankees couldn’t ignore.
At the time of his call-up, Jones was hitting just .258 but with 11 homers and a .958 OPS.
“I felt like I was putting myself in a good position for where I wanted to be,” Jones said late Friday afternoon in the visitor’s clubhouse at American Family Field.
One of Jones’ homers, a blast on Sunday, came off his bat at 117.4 mph, the second hardest-hit ball in the minor leagues to date in 2026.
But there, too, are the strikeouts.
Jones has struck out 46 times in 142 plate appearances this season for a 32.4% strikeout rate, slightly down from his 35.4% strikeout rate last season (179 strikeouts in 506 plate appearances).
Numbers like those is the primary reasons Jones elicits more polar-opposite opinions from rival talent evaluators than perhaps any other touted prospect in the game.
“He still gets so easily disconnected with his swing,” one AL scout said. “The power guys are always going to strike out (a lot) but there’s just a lot of holes in the swing most major-league pitchers will be able to exploit.”
One perspective.
An NL scout offered another.
“I get it (the skepticism) but, bottom line, I see him potentially a 40-guy (homers) with regular at-bats,” the scout said. “Would take him right now for us. I’ll live with the strikeouts.”
Jones, who has played primarily in centerfield in the minors but has experience at the corner outfield spots and overwhelmingly draws positive reviews from talent evaluators for his work on defense, tweaked his stance in the offseason in order to cut down on the strikeouts.
“I’m feeling comfortable and I’m feeling like I know what I have to do pitch-to-pitch,” Jones said. “Mechanically, I feel like I’m in a good spot.”
Jones spent each of the last two spring trainings in big-league camp with the Yankees, and Boone said he saw a significant improvement in his swing decisions.
“I mean that’s fair,” Boone said of the criticism of Jones’ strikeout total. “That’s the biggest issue he’s faced throughout his minor-league career and something he and we have tried to address, continued to work to get better and he’s done that. I thought this spring was really good as far as seeing some of the adjustments he’s making to improve on those kind of things.”
Friday brought, at last, a chance for Jones to test out those adjustments in the majors.
With the chance — a real one — of staying there for a while.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
