The Yankees’ Refusal to Open the Door for Jasson Domínguez Could Prove Costly

By this time a year ago, the Yankees were simply playing out the string, battling to avoid their first losing season since 1992. Their September was briefly enlivened by the arrival of Jasson Domínguez, a switch-hitting 20-year-old center fielder who homered off Justin Verlander in his first plate appearance, but “The Martian” — so named for his otherworldly collection of tools — tore his right ulnar collateral ligament after playing just eight games. His Tommy John surgery and projected lack of availability early this season led the Yankees to trade for Alex Verdugo, whom they’ve stuck with as their everyday left fielder despite his increasingly conspicuous lack of production. As they run neck-and-neck with the Orioles in the AL East race, they’ve bypassed a golden opportunity to upgrade their lineup.

On Tuesday night in Arlington, the Yankees blew a 4-0 eighth-inning lead, losing 7-4 when closer Clay Holmes blew his major league-leading 11th save by retiring just one of the five batters he faced, capped by a walk-off grand slam by Wyatt Langford. The loss, the Yankees’ fifth in seven games, knocked them out of first place for the first time since August 20; at 80-59, they’re now half a game behind the Orioles (81-59). While the Holmes saga is a story for another day, it shares with the Verdugo/Domínguez situation the Yankees’ stubborn refusal to change what isn’t working in the midst of a playoff race, one where a first-round bye is at stake. In both cases — and in others throughout his seven-year tenure — manager Aaron Boone has publicly avoided acknowledging players’ struggles, sounding notes of Pollyanna-ish optimism that may have earned him loyalty within the Yankees’ clubhouse (and apparently the rest of the organization), but too often appear divorced from reality.

In the case of the offense, the Yankees lead the AL in scoring (5.09 runs per game) and wRC+ (118), but that’s largely a reflection of the incredible, historic contributions of the majors’ top two hitters by wRC+, namely Aaron Judge (.324/.457/.706, 217 wRC+) and Juan Soto (.291/.419/.582, 181 wRC+). Only three other regulars have a wRC+ of 100 or better: Austin Wells, who’s doing about 60% of the catching work; Giancarlo Stanton, who missed over five weeks in June and July due to a left hamstring strain; and Jazz Chisholm Jr., who has played all of 25 games for the Yankees since being acquired on July 27. Besides Judge and Soto, their other three players with at least 561 plate appearances each have a wRC+ below 100, namely second baseman Gleyber Torres (96), shortstop Anthony Volpe (95 wRC+), and Verdugo (84 wRC+). Volpe’s defense is strong enough that he ranks third on the team with 3.6 WAR, Torres has hit for a 115 wRC+ in the second half, and Chisholm has shored up their once-dismal third base production, but first base has been an additional drag on the offense, with Anthony Rizzo, Ben Rice, DJ LeMahieu et al combining for just a 74 wRC+ and -1.3 WAR.

The Yankees acquired the then-27-year-old Verdugo in a rare trade with the Red Sox on December 5. It was a busy week for general manager Brian Cashman, who paused talks with the Padres regarding Soto long enough to close the Boston deal, then completed the seven-player Soto blockbuster the next day. Even if Verdugo’s ceiling was as a league-average player, the reasoning went, the Yankees had netted -0.3 WAR from their left fielders in 2023, and -0.8 WAR from all of their outfielders besides Judge, who had been limited to 106 games by a right big toe injury. An outfield with two generational sluggers could withstand a league-average third.

Which isn’t to say that Verdugo was exactly league average. The former Top 100 prospect (no. 48 in 2018, but down to no. 117 in ’19, both times as a 50-FV prospect) hit for a 112 wRC+ with 2.1 WAR in 106 games as a 23-year-old rookie with the Dodgers in 2019. The following spring, he was the centerpiece of the return in the Mookie Betts trade, and his 125 wRC+ and 1.6 WAR in the abbreviated 2020 season made for a promising beginning amid what was otherwise an unfathomable move.

While he cracked our Trade Value list at no. 35 in 2021, by that point Verdugo was already stagnating. From 2021–23, he netted just 4.3 WAR for the Red Sox, hitting a tepid .277/.334/.417 (102 wRC+) in 1,850 PA. He never hit more than 13 homers in a season, struggled against lefties despite ample opportunity (68 wRC+ in 532 PA), and turned in uneven defense metrics (5.5 UZR, 5 DRS, -9 FRV), mainly in the corners. He fell off our Trade Value list as quickly as he had appeared, and wore out his welcome in Boston. In 2023, manager Alex Cora benched him twice, once for a lack of hustle while running into a critical out, and once for showing up late, apparently not for the first time.

By 2023, when he hit for just a 98 wRC+, Verdugo’s stock had fallen enough to foist him upon a division rival, albeit for a solid return — righties Richard Fitts, Nicholas Judice, and Greg Weissert — given that he had just one year of club control remaining. That said, of that group, only Fitts cracked Boston’s Top Prospects list, as a 40-FV starter (Weissert, previously a 40-FV prospect, amassed too much big league time to qualify as a rookie). Boone sounded particularly upbeat regarding the newcomer. “He’s a really good two-way player — defends well in the corners and obviously [has a] really good bat-to-ball [ability], left-handed,” he told reporters. “I feel like there’s an edge he plays the game with, so I’m excited about this.”

Verdugo started strong, hitting .267/.358/.446 (127 wRC+) with four homers in March and April, but he hasn’t hit for more than an 89 wRC+ in any full calendar month since:

Verdugo’s 84 wRC+ is the eighth-lowest among batting title qualifiers, with five of the players below him at least playing positions of greater defensive responsibility; all have a higher WAR mark than Verdugo’s 0.6. Measured from May 1, Verdugo’s 72 wRC+ is the fifth-lowest among qualifiers and the worst among left fielders. Either way, those are objectively terrible numbers for a corner outfielder on a team with championship aspirations, particularly a player to whom the team has no commitment beyond this year.

To be fair, while his 49.1% groundball rate is his highest since 2021, Verdugo is making somewhat better contact than his numbers suggest, and falling short of his Statcast expected numbers. But those are nothing to write home about, and represent a decline from the past two years:

Verdugo’s hard-hit and barrel rates, as well as his xSLG and xwOBA, rank anywhere from the 27th to 38th percentiles. There’s no trend with his batted ball stats to suggest he’s suddenly turned a corner:

Even with good defense (7 DRS, 3.4 UZR, 3 FRV), Verdugo has been barely worth more than half a win. As for Domínguez, because he signed for a team record $5.1 million bonus on July 2, 2019, he “instantly became one of the most celebrated Yankees prospects in recent memory,” as Baseball America wrote. His arrival was hotly anticipated, though heading into 2023 he was “merely” 50th on our Top 100 Prospects list and third on the Yankees list as a switch-hitting 50-FV prospect. He’s currently no. 27 on The Board, still as a 50-FV prospect.

Because Domínguez split his 2022 season between Low-A Tampa and High-A Hudson Valley before finishing with a 10-game cameo at Double-A Somerset, he did not figure in the Yankees’ immediate plans for ’23. Returning to Somerset, he hit .254/.367/.414 (118 wRC+) in 109 games, with dramatic improvement from the first half to the second. As the Yankees’ season slipped away in August, they began turning over their roster, a process that included releasing Josh Donaldson after he’d completed a rehab assignment and letting Harrison Bader depart via waivers. After Domínguez laid waste to the International League in a nine-game stop at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre (.419/.514/.581), he got the call, and crushed a three-run, 360-foot opposite field home run off Verlander in his first plate appearances; at 20 years and 206 days, he became the youngest Yankee and fifth-youngest player overall to homer in such fashion.

Domínguez added three more homers in his next seven games, hitting .258/.303/.677 through 31 PA, all while playing through discomfort in his right (throwing) elbow. When he struggled to hit the ball hard during batting practice, the Yankees sent him for an MRI, which revealed the tear. He underwent Tommy John surgery on September 20; the procedure was expected to keep him out of action for nine to 10 months. He began his rehab assignment with Tampa on May 14, just short of eight months from his surgery, and moved up to Somerset after four games; he DHed for his first 10 games between the two stops before returning to center field on May 29.

On June 4, Domínguez returned to Scranton, where he hit .389/.405/.639 in his first nine games before being sidelined by a strained oblique for about six weeks, from mid-June to late July. He hasn’t shown as much power since returning, and has hit .299/.357/.455 (112 wRC+) in 168 PA at Scranton overall, and .333/.379/.519 in 58 PA since his one-game cameo with the Yankees; though more experienced in center, he’s played 52 games in left over the past two seasons. Allowed to roster a 27th player for their Little League Classic game at Williamsport on August 18, the team called him up and started him in left field. He went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and a groundout, then returned to Scranton.

The Yankees could have tabbed Domínguez on September 1, when teams were allowed to add one position player and one pitcher, but instead they called up Duke Ellis, an 26-year-old lefty-swinging outfielder who passed through the White Sox, Mets, and Mariners’ organizations this year before being plucked off waivers by the Yankees on August 26; he’s a pinch-running/defensive replacement type who played eight games and stole four bases while going 0-for-4 with Chicago. As he was on the 40-man roster before September 1, Domínguez is still postseason-eligible, but the decision not to promote him has opened the team up to widespread criticism. Boone has defended the non-move in typical fashion, pointing to “a lot of really good at-bats and some tough matchups in Washington” for Verdugo, as if a three-game series against the league’s third-worst team last week outweighed four months of replacement level play.

Regarding Domínguez, Boone said this:

“When he comes up here, you’re going to want to play him every day. He’ll continue to remain in that conversation. Over the last couple of weeks, he’s starting to play well from coming back from the oblique injury. Tough call right now. It doesn’t mean that it won’t change in a couple of days, a week, two weeks, whatever it is. But it’s important for him to continue to play right now.”

To these eyes, “won’t change in a couple of days” reads like a manager who knows the target date for the player’s call-up but won’t publicly reveal it, lest the team be accused of service time shenanigans. MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch was among the Yankees beat writers doing some math:

However, as Baseball America’s JJ Cooper and Matt Eddy and The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner have noted, the Yankees would not qualify to receive a Prospect Promotion Incentive (PPI) draft pick if Domínguez were to win Rookie of the Year in 2025 because he’s already amassed over 60 days of service time, as he was on the major league IL while recovering from surgery; only when his rehab clock ran out on June 12, just before his oblique strain, was he officially optioned. Domínguez will remain rookie eligible next season if he finishes 2024 with fewer than 45 days on the active roster (by our count, he has 11) and 130 at-bats (as noted above, he has 35). “The only service time benefit the Yankees could get with having Domínguez remain in the minor leagues is keeping out of the Super Two designation,” wrote Kirschner. “That would be a stretch if it were a consideration for the Yankees.”

Still, the hole in the lineup persists, and the Yankees’ complacency towards it is a gift to the Orioles as the two teams battle for seeding. While there’s no guarantee that Domínguez would outproduce Verdugo, the incumbent has set a ridiculously low bar to clear, and there’s no good reason not to address one of their many problems by giving the rookie a look.