Spencer Jones went from being one of the Yankees’ most intriguing young names to a player scouts now think could be on the move.
Not long ago, Jones had all the ingredients that make people dream big in the Bronx. He had the kind of left-handed swing that fit Yankee Stadium’s short right-field porch, plus speed on the bases, quick instincts in center field and the kind of attitude that can sell a future.
Some optimists even started floating the Aaron Judge comparison, only from the left side. In spring training, the buzz was real.
Now the picture looks different. Jones is back at Triple-A after two stints with the Yankees, waiting on either a third shot in the majors or a trade before the Aug. 3 deadline. Around the game, the betting is that the Yankees should deal him.
“Trade Jones while he still has some value,” one talent evaluator wrote in a text message this week. “He’s Joey Gallo 2.0.”
That comparison lands hard in New York because Gallo’s time in pinstripes never came close to matching the power profile that brought him here. Like Jones, he was a left-handed slugger built to punish balls to right field.
Instead, his Yankees tenure from 2021-22 became a parade of strikeouts. He hit .159 in parts of two seasons and fanned 194 times in 501 plate appearances, a 39% rate.
Jones’ numbers with the Yankees this year have triggered the same alarms. In two call-ups, he’s batting .233 with 34 strikeouts in 82 plate appearances, a 42% whiff rate. Scouts say the issue is obvious: Jones’ big upper-cut swing leaves him exposed to high-velocity fastballs on the inner half of the strike zone.
“It’s a pretty glaring hole,” another scout said of Jones’ cold zone. “(Opposing teams) have figured that out and Jones hasn’t made an adjustment.”
For the Yankees, the decision now falls to Brian Cashman. He has to decide in the next few weeks whether Jones can make enough of an adjustment to stick. If Jones is destined to be a home run-or-strikeout hitter, the expectation is that the Yankees will trade him.
Jones’ supporters aren’t ready to close the book. They point to Aaron Judge, who also had strikeout issues early in his Yankees career and needed time to settle in. Judge struck out 30.7% and 30.5% of the time in his first two seasons in New York, though his minor league strikeout rate from 2014-2016 was 25%.
Jones has always carried more swing-and-miss risk. His combined strikeout rate from 2022 to mid-2026 sits at 33%. Even so, he’s not Joey Gallo - his minor league batting average is .272 - and some around the game believe Jasson Dominguez is the better long-term bet.
That leaves Cashman staring at a bigger roster question, too. With Trent Grisham likely to leave as a free agent this winter, the Yankees have to sort out who they want in center field in 2027: Jones or Dominguez.
Plenty of insiders think Dominguez wins that race. If that happens, Jones may still carve out a solid big league career, just not in New York.
The All-Star Game brought a different kind of Yankees note, with Cody Bellinger and Ben Rice helping create the cushion for the American League’s win on Tuesday. Bellinger’s MVP award will look good on the back of his baseball card.
But the game itself was a slog for everyone else. The National League managed only three hits, another reminder of how much pitchers are controlling the sport right now. MLB’s batting average is .244, and Gerrit Cole said last week that pitching dominance could eventually become a marketing problem for the league.
Cole also pointed to the robot umpire future he believes is coming, saying, “They’re going to make the strike zone smaller so offense gets back to where it was in 1980,” a nod to George Brett’s .390 season with Kansas City.
The numbers have been sliding for years. The highest overall average was .271 in 1999, and the trend has mostly gone downward since 2009.
There’s another issue hanging over the sport, too: the growing habit of scattering marquee events across streaming platforms. The Home Run Derby drew just 5.3 million viewers, the fewest since 2003, when it drew 5.2 million. Netflix had the rights, and many fans, especially older ones, weren’t eager to pay $26.99 a month for it.
That, in the end, is part of the larger complaint about commissioner Rob Manfred, whose term runs through 2029. The All-Star Game itself drew 8.79 million viewers, up 22% from last year, and the reason was simple: it aired on Fox. It was free.
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