It turns out that the Yankees’ evaluators were right to question whether Jasson Dominguez was ready to hit and field well enough to have an immediate impact on the pennant race.
It’s also now clear that the team acted hastily in recalling Dominguez from Triple-A on Sept. 9.
And at a most inopportune moment, Yankees officials’ fears that calling up Dominguez would dampen the mood have come true. Alex Verdugo and leaves the team with no good options in left field for the playoffs.
This isn’t a talent debate. Dominguez clearly has more talent than Verdugo and has at times looked like a future star. This is about the 21-year-old’s ability this month to outperform the version of Verdugo who played on Sept. 8, the day Dominguez was called up.
Verdugo has undoubtedly 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 reduce his playing time, the coaching staff saw underlying improvements.
Those improvements began to show in the results. In the eight games between Sept. 1, when Dominguez’s non-callup caused a frenzy never before seen in the tri-state area, and Sept. 9, Verdugo hit .321/.367/.429.
The relevant question on Sept. 9 wasn’t whether Dominguez would ever be a better player than Verdugo (he probably will, perhaps as early as 2025). The question is whether he would immediately surpass Verdugo’s current production — because if he wouldn’t, why bother?
And guess what? It’s hard to get into the big leagues and put up those numbers on day one. Even future Hall of Famers usually need an adjustment period.
When Dominguez took the field Thursday, he was hitting .195/.298/.366. Over that same span, Verdugo is hitting .194/.242/.290. The reduced playing time appears to have squandered the progress he made earlier in the month.
Mind you, we haven’t even talked about defense yet. The Yankees know they need an elite left fielder in the spacious Yankee Stadium — see Gardner, Brett for all these 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 hesitation to force Dominguez onto the current roster.
According to a Yankees official, Dominguez is a 50 left fielder on the 20-80 scouting scale; Gardner was generally considered an 80. Dominguez also is a 50 center, but he would be able to rely more on his natural speed there and would have less trouble with routes like the one that played a big role in Wednesday’s 9-7 loss to Baltimore.
In the top of the first inning, after spot starter Marcus Stroman allowed three singles to start the game, the Orioles’ Colton Cowser sent a fly ball down the left field line. The chance of the ball being caught, according to Baseball Savant, was 95 percent. Dominguez lost the ball as it drifted back into fair territory. The ball came in for a two-run single to open the scoring.
“I have no excuse,” Dominguez said. “That ball had to be caught, 100 percent of the time.”
Give Dominguez credit for his accountability, for his work with the outfield coach Luis Rojasand for his honesty. But that honesty on Wednesday also highlighted the risks of having him play on the left in the games that matter most this year.
“I haven’t played a lot of games in left field,” Dominguez said. “I feel like I can do it, pretty much. I mean, there’s obviously [things] I still have to work on it, but I feel like with more work I can get there.”
That sounds like a goal for 2025. The Yankees must realize they can’t afford another learning opportunity during a postseason in which they are favored to represent the American League in the World Series.
Dominguez’s bat improved significantly during the West Coast road trip that ended Sunday, during which he slashed .250/.348/.600. He has proven to be a better offensive option than Verdugo over the past week.
Perhaps that trend will continue and Dominguez will provide the Yankees with big hits in October. But how can the team risk its defense?
But how can they field Verdugo while sacrificing attack in a key position?
“You try to take it all in,” the manager says Aaron Boone said about 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 in the final stretch … we’ll continue to pay attention to that.”
Suddenly, there are no good choices. This is exactly the conundrum the Yankees feared in early September, and which could have been avoided by keeping Dominguez in Triple-A a bit longer to see if Verdugo would maintain his improvements.
It’s too late for that now. The Yankees have to hope that neither player hurts them in October.
