{"id":300125,"date":"2025-11-19T00:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T00:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/300125\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T00:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T00:22:09","slug":"yankees-select-spencer-jones-elmer-rodriguez-chase-hampton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/300125\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees Select Spencer Jones, Elmer Rodriguez, Chase Hampton"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Yankees on Tuesday selected the contracts of outfielder Spencer Jones<\/a> and righties Elmer Rodriguez<\/a> and Chase Hampton<\/a>, per a team announcement. They\u2019re now on the 40-man roster and ineligible to be selected by another club in December\u2019s Rule 5 Draft.<\/p>\n

There are no surprises in this trio of additions. Hampton, Rodriguez and Jones rank among the Yankees\u2019 top prospects and were sure to be protected. Jones is the most recognizable of the bunch thanks to a prodigious power display this summer. The 24-year-old popped 35 home runs between Double-A and Triple-A combined and turned plenty of heads when he swatted 13 round-trippers in his first 19 games after moving up to the higher of those two levels.<\/p>\n

Jones is immensely strikeout prone, however, and fell into a deep slump after that jaw-dropping hot streak. Over his final 48 games and 183 plate appearances, Jones hit just .219\/.289\/.383 with a 42% strikeout rate. He could get a look at some point in 2026, but he\u2019ll need to radically cut down on his strikeouts if he\u2019s to become a productive big leaguer. Jones\u2019 huge raw power and hulking 6\u20197\u2033 stature have led to plenty of Aaron Judge comparisons, but even the strikeout-prone Judge punched out in just 23.9% of his plate appearances during his final Triple-A season. Jones was at 33.7% in Double-A and 36.6% in Triple-A.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez, 22, came to the Yankees in a rare trade with their archrival Red Sox, sending catcher Carlos Narvaez the other direction. It has serious win-win potential. Narvaez became a prominent part of Boston\u2019s catching corps in 2025, while Rodriguez climbed to Triple-A and posted a 2.58 ERA with a 29% strikeout rate and 9.4% walk rate in 150 minor league frames.<\/p>\n

Hampton, 24, missed the entire season due to Tommy John surgery. He pitched only 18 2\/3 innings in 2024 as well. That said, he\u2019s a former sixth-round pick and touted prospect who tossed 106 2\/3 frames with a 3.63 ERA while climbing to Double-A as a 21-year-old back in 2022. Scouting reports tout his plus curveball and slider. If he\u2019s back to full health in \u201926, he\u2019ll begin the year in Double-A or Triple-A and could pitch his way into consideration for a big league look late in the summer \u2014 though he might be a more realistic 2027 rotation candidate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Yankees on Tuesday selected the contracts of outfielder Spencer Jones and righties Elmer Rodriguez and Chase Hampton,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[156231,156232,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-300125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-chase-hampton","9":"tag-spencer-jones","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}