It turns out that Yankees evaluators were right to doubt whether Jasson Dominguez was ready to hit and field well enough to make an immediate impact on the pennant race.
It’s also now clear that the team was hasty in recalling Dominguez from Triple-A on Sept. 9.
And at a most inopportune time, Yankees brass has seen their fear come true that summoning Dominguez would cool off Alex Verdugo and leave the team with no good options in left field for the playoffs.
This is not a discussion about talent. Dominguez clearly has more of it than Verdugo and has looked at times like a future star. This is about the 21-year-old’s ability this month to outplay the version of Verdugo who suited up on Sept. 8, the day of the Dominguez call-up.
No doubt, Verdugo has been a disappointment at the plate this year. No one would defend his season. But in the days and even weeks before Dominguez arrived to cut into his playing time, the coaching staff saw underlying improvements.
Those improvements began to manifest in results. In the eight games between Sept. 1, when the non-callup of Dominguez triggered a rage never before seen in the tri-state area, and Sept. 9, Verdugo slashed .321/.367/.429.
The relevant question on Sept. 9 was not whether Dominguez would one day be a better player than Verdugo (he likely will, perhaps as soon as 2025). The question is whether he would immediately best Verdugo’s current production — because if not, why make the move?
And guess what? It’s hard to step into the big leagues and put up those numbers on day one. Even future Hall of Famers typically need an adjustment period.
Entering play on Thursday, Dominguez was slashing .195/.298/.366. During that same span, Verdugo has produced at a .194/.242/.290 clip. Diminished playing time appears to have squandered the progress he made earlier in the month.
Note that we haven’t even talked about defense yet. The Yankees know that they need an elite left fielder in spacious Yankee Stadium — see Gardner, Brett for all those years — and that Verdugo is a much better fielder than Dominguez. This is an organization that scouts its own farm system as well as anyone, which contributed to the hesitance to force Dominguez onto the current roster.
One Yankees person says that Dominguez grades as a 50 left fielder on the 20-80 scouting scale; Gardner was generally considered an 80. Dominguez is a 50 in center, too, but could rely on his natural speed more there and wouldn’t struggle as much with routes, like the one that loomed large throughout a 9-7 loss to Baltimore on Wednesday.
In the top of the first inning, after spot starter Marcus Stroman allowed three singles to begin the game, the Orioles’ Colton Cowser sent a fly ball toward the left field line. The probability that the ball would be caught, per Baseball Savant, was 95 percent. Dominguez lost the ball as it drifted back into fair territory. It fell in for a two-run single to open the scoring.
“I have no excuse,” Dominguez said. “That ball had to be caught, like, 100 percent of the time.”
Credit Dominguez for accountability, for his work with outfield coach Luis Rojas, and for his honesty. But that honesty on Wednesday also highlighted the risks of playing him in left in the games that matter most this year.
“I haven’t played a ton of games in left field,” Dominguez said. “I feel like I can do it, pretty much. I mean, obviously there are [things] I still need to work on, but I feel like with more work, I can get there.”
That sounds like a goal for 2025. The Yankees must know that they cannot risk another teachable moment happening during a postseason in which they are the favorites to represent the American League in the World Series.
Dominguez’s bat picked up significantly on the West Coast road trip that concluded on Sunday, during which he slashed .250./.348/.600. Over the past week, he has been a better offensive option than Verdugo.
Perhaps that trend will continue, and Dominguez will power the Yankees with big hits in October. But how can the team risk his defense?
Then again, how can they play Verdugo and sacrifice offense at a key position?
“You kind of try to take it all in,” manager Aaron Boone said of the choice between the two. “What gives you the best chance to win on a given night? And trying to get a good look at Jasson here down the stretch … we’ll continue to pay attention to all of it.”
Suddenly, there are no good choices. This is exactly the conundrum that the Yankees feared in early September and one that might have been avoided by leaving Dominguez in Triple-A for a bit longer, to see if Verdugo would sustain his improvements.
It’s too late for that now. The Yankees are left to hope that neither player hurts them in October.