{"id":656531,"date":"2026-05-07T23:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/656531\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T23:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:39:12","slug":"yankees-to-call-up-prospect-spencer-jones-for-mlb-debut-source","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/656531\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees to call up prospect Spencer Jones for MLB debut: Source"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 The New York Yankees are promoting slugger Spencer Jones from Triple A to the majors, a team source told The Athletic, with Jasson Dom\u00ednguez headed to the injured list<\/a> after slamming into the outfield wall during Thursday\u2019s 9-2 win over the Texas Rangers.<\/p>\n

Jones has been on a tear for the Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders this season, posting a .958 OPS with 11 home runs and an International League-leading 41 RBIs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like the last three, four weeks, he\u2019s been having a lot of consistent at-bats,\u201d Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. \u201cThe power has been there, less swing-and-miss, which is some of the things we were seeing a little bit in spring training after that second week in Triple A where he went and struggled a little bit with the swing-and-miss. He\u2019s cleaned that up. The signs have been encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones was ranked as the Yankees\u2019 No. 7 prospect<\/a> coming into the 2026 season by The Athletic\u2019s Keith Law.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old outfielder will immediately become one of the most fascinating players in the majors. Jones\u2019 71.1 percent in-zone contact percentage in Triple A would be the second-worst among all big leaguers; only Chicago White Sox rookie Munetaka Murakami\u2019s mark is lower. Murakami has possessed otherworldly power in his first month in the big leagues, and the Yankees hope Jones can follow a similar path.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is special,\u201d Max Schuemann, Jones\u2019 former teammate at Triple A, said of the prospect\u2019s power.<\/p>\n

Dom\u00ednguez is expected to miss a few weeks with an AC joint sprain in his left shoulder. He was playing nearly every day since Giancarlo Stanton was placed on the IL with a calf strain. That means Jones could be in line for a similar role, with the outfielder playing against right-handed pitching and Paul Goldschmidt getting at-bats versus lefties.<\/p>\n

Jones overhauled his mechanics<\/a> this offseason to mimic Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani\u2019s swing. The thought process behind the decision was that most of Jones\u2019 whiffing problems related to his high leg kick. Jones now has an exaggerated toe tap like Ohtani, but the results in reducing his swing-and-miss have been mixed. Last season at Scranton, Jones\u2019 whiff rate was 41.5 percent, and this season it is 43.8 percent, according to Prospect Savant. But Jones\u2019 overall strikeout percentage has dropped by a few percentage points year over year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the biggest thing that I\u2019ve noticed swing-wise is he\u2019s just ready to hit,\u201d Judge said about Jones\u2019 new mechanics during spring training. \u201cThe minute he puts that foot down with the little toe-tap, he\u2019s ready to hit. Maybe they might have got him with a lot of high heaters in the past or even last season. I think that\u2019s just going to help him. He doesn\u2019t have a big leg kick; he doesn\u2019t have to worry about getting that down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat quickness, that readiness is really going to be a game-changer for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Yankees drafted Jones in the first round out of Vanderbilt in 2022 and gave him a $2,880,800 signing bonus. He was once considered a top-100 prospect by Baseball America, but because of concerns about his lack of contact, his pedigree has fallen. Still, there are reasons to be excited about his potential because few players across all levels can hit baseballs the way he can.<\/p>\n

Last week, Jones clobbered a 117.4 mph home run off former Toronto Blue Jays starter Jos\u00e9 Berr\u00edos. A 117.4 mph batted ball would be the third-hardest in MLB this season. The 6-foot-7 left-handed hitter shouldn\u2019t have problems running into a few pitches, but how effective he\u2019ll be against major-league pitching will be closely examined over the next few weeks with Dom\u00ednguez and Stanton sidelined.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a large man that hits the ball very far,\u201d Cody Bellinger said of Jones. \u201cHonestly, a freak athlete, too. I didn\u2019t know (about) the speed. He\u2019s very athletic, moves well and is just a good baseball player.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 The New York Yankees are promoting slugger Spencer Jones from Triple A to the majors,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,2704,85],"class_list":["post-656531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}