{"id":224119,"date":"2025-10-19T07:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T07:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/224119\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T07:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T07:56:08","slug":"where-jasson-dominguez-fits-within-yankees-puzzle-still-to-be-determined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/224119\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Jasson Dominguez fits within Yankees puzzle still to be determined"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jasson Dom\u00ednguez\u2019s showing in the postseason embodied what the Yankees think of the young outfielder.<\/p>\n

For a second straight October, Dom\u00ednguez barely got off the bench when it mattered most, but unlike their World Series run of 2024, the 22-year-old at least got an at-bat during these playoffs.<\/p>\n

It was a pinch-hit, rocket double from the left side that clocked in at 112 MPH.<\/p>\n

But it followed a wild-card series and ALDS in which Dom\u00ednguez barely played a role, and that came after a September in which he was an afterthought, with just 20 plate appearances in the entire month.<\/p>\n

The Yankees say he\u2019s an important part of their future<\/a> and he\u2019s still the youngest player on their 40-man roster, but at some point, Dom\u00ednguez needs to play up to expectations.<\/p>\n

And heading into this offseason, not even the Yankees have much of an idea if that will be the case.<\/p>\n

Jasson Dom\u00ednguez #24 hits a double during the 9th inning of Game 4 of the ALDS against the Blue Jays. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cI expect him to be right in that mix to be that guy,\u2019\u2019 Aaron Boone said this week. \u201cI still really like his ceiling. But, again, you\u2019ve got to see where the winter takes you and what the roster looks like. I expect him to be a regular player for us, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

To Boone\u2019s point, the Yankees outfield situation is in flux. Trent Grisham is a free agent after emerging as a power threat as an everyday centerfielder and Cody Bellinger is expected to opt out of his contract<\/a> to hit the open market after a stellar season in The Bronx.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Boone said he expected Dom\u00ednguez to play winter ball this offseason and work in left field, but if the Yankees don\u2019t bring back Bellinger or Grisham, it seems hard to believe they would entrust Dom\u00ednguez to play left field on a regular basis, given his deficiencies at the position.<\/p>\n

He primarily played center in the minors, although Boone noted he didn\u2019t have a lot of minor league games due to injuries and the COVID-shortened season of 2020.<\/p>\n

Jasson Dom\u00ednguez (24) is unable to field Houston Astros outfielder Chas McCormick (20) ground-rule double in the fourth inning against the Houston Astros at Yankee Stadium. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n

Still, among 19 outfielders who played at least 790 innings in left this past season, none had a worse defensive runs saved rating than Dom\u00ednguez\u2019s minus-7, according to Fangraphs. <\/p>\n

And his minus-10 outs above average was the worst among 34 outfielders, according to Baseball Savant.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefinitely, left field continues to be a work in progress,\u2019\u2019 Boone said. \u201cI think he made tremendous strides there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jasson Dom\u00ednguez runs down the ball after misplaying Chas McCormick\u2019s double as Cody Bellinger looks on during a Yankees\u2019 game against the Astros this past season. Jason Szenez \/ New York Post<\/p>\n

Scouts were less impressed with his growth defensively.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see a guy that\u2019s comfortable there, and Yankee Stadium isn\u2019t a place you want someone who\u2019s figuring it out,\u201d an AL scout said.<\/p>\n

Since the Yankees also have a question mark in center, it\u2019s hard to know where Dom\u00ednguez lands, but Boone said the team continues to like his arm strength, speed and athleticism, and believes the work he put into improving that part of his game will pay off.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo beyond the box score with the Bombers\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Yankees by Greg Joyce, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

But the other issue is that while Dom\u00ednguez has shown he can be dangerous from the left side of the plate, he\u2019s struggled from the right side.<\/p>\n

He had just a .569 OPS and one homer in 104 plate appearances as a right-handed hitter and struck out 34 times.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did a lot of really good things this year,\u2019\u2019 Boone said. \u201cWe all see his ability at the plate. He didn\u2019t hit for a lot of power, but there\u2019s power in there to all fields from both sides of the plate\u2026 He has a chance to really hit and be a good defender. And we saw the impact he can have on the basepaths. This season very much showed us we can still dream on [him].\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Until that dream becomes a reality, though, the Yankees will be hard-pressed to simply hand him an everyday spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jasson Dom\u00ednguez\u2019s showing in the postseason embodied what the Yankees think of the young outfielder. For a second…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,81447,462,3980,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-224119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-jasson-dominguez","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-new-york-yankees","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}