Poll: Should the Yankees send Jasson Domínguez to Triple-A?

The outfield logjam has not taken care of itself. In a miracle of miracles, the Yankees have stayed healthy on the position player side other than poor Oswaldo Cabrera (stayed healthy in-season I mean, DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton had their preseason injuries). These position logjams usually resolve themselves, but this one hasn’t. Every day one of Cody Bellinger, Jasson Domínguez, or Trent Grisham is on the bench.

“We have, frankly, guys that should be in there probably pretty much every single day and we’ll have to work a little bit of a rotation there,” Aaron Boone told Ron Blum after Stanton returned. “Everyone’s not going to be happy about it all the time and that’s okay as long as we’re all in it together as a team.”

On May 9th, Domínguez became the youngest Yankee ever with a three-homer game, but he’s hitting .224/.325/.286 (78 wRC+) in 118 plate appearances since, including .225/.329/.310 (86 wRC+) against righties. He’s also on the short end of the outfield playing time stick. Domínguez has started only 16 of the last 24 games. Bellinger and Grisham have each started 21 of the last 24 games. 

Is it time to send Domínguez to Triple-A? It would give him a chance to play every day, something he’s not getting in the Bronx, and also give the Yankees a chance to fine tune the margins of the roster. The Red Sox sent Kristian Campbell down. The Mets just sent Francisco Alvarez down. The Cubs sent down Matt Shaw earlier this year, and after a month in the minors, he came back a (slightly) better player. Teams send top prospects down all the time.

My initial thought is I’m on the fence about this. I can see the argument for sending Domínguez down and the argument for keeping him up. Let’s lay it all out and examine all the angles of such a move, then vote on it. Sound good? Good.

What are the service time considerations?

Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first. Domínguez can not spend enough time in the minors this year to delay his free agency. There aren’t enough days remaining in the season for it to happen. Spending 20 days in the minors would likely take him out of Super Two range though. He might not be in it now, the Super Two cutoff is a moving target each year and he’s borderline, but 20 days would almost certainly knock him out. Even as few as 5-10 days could do it, though there are some funky rules about getting credit for service time retroactively when you spend that little time in the minors. Point is, it’s too late to delay Domínguez’s free agency, but a demotion could knock him out of Super Two range. For Jasson, Super Two and that extra year of arbitration would be the service time consideration. Not free agency.

What are the developmental goals in Scranton?

The single biggest point in favor of demoting Domínguez is giving him the opportunity to play every day, something he is not getting now. Being in the big leagues and not playing can be beneficial, players can learn a lot while sitting in on meetings and whatnot, but there is no substitute for game action. Domínguez has started only two out of every three games the last month or so.

Playing every day is a nice idea, but the time has to be spent productively, otherwise what’s the point? There are two easy-to-identify areas in which Domínguez would benefit from more reps. He has to get better against lefties, and he has to improve his left field defense. I actually think Domínguez’s defense has been much better the last few weeks. It can get better though. It’s still rough around the edges.

As for getting better against lefties, does that mean giving up switch-hitting and hitting left-handed all the time? I think it’s too early for that conversation, Domínguez is only 22, but if that is something he and the Yankees decide to pursue, it would be better to begin the conversion in Triple-A. He’s never seen a slider that moves away from him. Ever. Seeing it for the first time in the show is a big ask.

Even if he sticks with switch-hitting, Domínguez could play every game against lefties in Scranton, which doesn't happen with the Yankees. He could also really hammer down on it behind the scenes. Pitching machines these days are incredible. He could really go to work against lefties in the afternoon and sit out that night’s game so he’s not overloaded. You can’t really do that in the big leagues. Players need to be available. Triple-A is a different story.

Another issue: Domínguez has been terrible against fastballs. He’s got a .239 AVG and .343 SLG (.313 xwOBA) against four-seamers and sinkers, which is well south of the MLB averages (.262, .343, .357). Pitchers keep feeding him elevated fastballs because he’s a low/away hitter, not someone who will turn around velocity at the letters. This is Domínguez as a lefty batter vs. fastballs:

Is there something in El Marciano’s swing(s) that needs to be ironed out so he can have more success against fastballs? Does he need to adjust his approach and get more comfortable hunting the heater early in the count? Is this all just a rookie trying to find his way in the big leagues? I’m not sure. But if it is something mechanical or with his approach, that is something Dominguez could work on in Triple-A.

We know what Domínguez must improve. He needs to get better defensively, against lefties, and against fastballs. He can work on those things in Triple-A. Counterpoint: Domínguez is a career .274/.373/.444 (131 wRC+) hitter with 17.0 K% and 9.6 BB% in Triple-A. What’s left to learn there? Is he going to learn how to hit big league fastballs in Scranton? Learn to play Yankee Stadium’s left field in Scranton?

Keep in mind Domínguez has had a very unusual development path. His first pro season was lost to the pandemic, then he had Tommy John surgery. El Marciano played only 353 games in the minors. That is about how many you’d expect for a late first round college hitter before his MLB debut, and Domínguez did that as an international amateur free agent who signed at 16. For his age, he’s pretty inexperienced.

Okay, so who replaces him?

Therein lies the problem. The Yankees don’t have anyone knocking on the door in Scranton. They would have to replace Domínguez with an outfielder too. Oswald Peraza has been working out in the outfield the last week or so, but I don’t think you can rely on him as your fourth outfielder. The Yankees could always put Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the outfield in an emergency. I’d rather that not be Plan B though.

The two most obvious call up candidates are perpetual prospect Everson Pereira and journeyman Bryan De La Cruz. Pereira is massively out-hitting De La Cruz in Scranton …

• De La Cruz: .230/.284/.393 (77 wRC+) with 6 HR (148 PA)

• Pereira: .244/.337/.472 (114 wRC+) with 12 HR (208 PA)

… but De La Cruz might be the better option for a bench role. Pereira’s strikeout (33.2%) and swinging strike (20.1%) rates are still way too high. That swinging strike rate would be the second highest among qualified big leaguers, and Pereira is doing it in Triple-A. De La Cruz is striking out a ton too (28.4%), but no one really cares if he sits on the bench for a week. Pereira needs to play (like Domínguez).

Two outside the box candidates: Brennen Davis and Jesus Rodriguez. I recently answered two mailbag questions about Rodriguez, who’s hitting .340/.423/.432 (135 wRC+) in 53 games with the RailRiders. He is a catcher/third baseman, which is not a great roster fit. Replace Domínguez with Rodriguez and you don’t have a true fourth outfielder and you have four (!) catchers on the roster. I can’t see it.

Davis, a top 100 prospect as recently as 2023, missed the start of this season with an injury, and he’s hit .344/.439/.771 (214 wRC+) in 28 games since returning. Performance has never really been an issue for Davis. He’s missed a lot of time with injuries and he swings and misses too much, albeit not as much as Pereira. Maybe Davis should get the call as the righty hitting fourth outfielder over De La Cruz or Pereira?

That we’re sitting here debating Davis, De La Cruz, Pereira, and Rodriguez as alternatives to Domínguez is a point in favor of “don’t send him down you idiots.” The Yankees don’t have a plug-and-play fourth outfielder, someone we could point to and reasonably say he’ll at least match what Domínguez is giving the Yankees while making the roster puzzle fit together a bit better. I guess Pereira is the best option?

Would it make the Yankees a better team?

While Domínguez’s development is a top priority, winning is still the top priority. If sending him down would make the Yankees a worse team, then they shouldn’t do it. There is no obvious replacement, and as we saw in Sacramento on May 9th and against the Rangers on May 21st, Domínguez has game-changing power and talent. We haven’t seen much of it yet, but it’s in there.

It’s hard to know if the Yankees would be better after sending Domínguez down without knowing who would replace him, and how much that player would play. For argument’s sake, here are the ZiPS projections for the three righty hitting outfielders I listed as call up candidates (I’m ruling Rodriguez out for positional reasons):

• Davis: .195/.287/.322 (70 wRC+)

• De La Cruz: .246/.291/.381 (85 wRC+)

• Pereira: .236/.298/.414 (98 wRC+)

Domínguez is at .238/.332/.379 (103 wRC+) overall, which is skewed heavily from the left side of the plate. If you trust the projections, then Pereira would come close to matching Domínguez’s offense while being a better roster fit because he’s a righty bat, plus he’s a better defender. The defensive upgrade would more than make up for the baserunning downgrade (not that Pereira is slow, he just doesn't steal like Domínguez).

ZiPS says Pereira’s the best in-house option, though Davis and De La Cruz would fill the same role. And, of course, there’s always the possibility of a trade, though it doesn’t sound like anything is on the horizon. The fact is that, right now, we can’t say with any certainty that sending Domínguez down would make the Yankees better. It could make them worse! It could make them worse while also being the best thing for El Marciano, but the team is the priority, not the individual player.

* * *

Calls up/send downs are not permanent. They can all be reversed, and if Domínguez goes to Triple-A and tears it up and checks whatever developmental boxes the Yankees want him to check, he’ll be called back up. Mike Trout and countless others needed a return trip to the minors before figuring things out at the highest level. Don’t underestimate the learning power of a Triple-A stint.

Demoting Domínguez would not be a punishment. It would be an acknowledgement that there are areas of his game that he must improve, which is part of being a 22-year-old ballplayer. Right now, he’s playing only two-thirds of the team’s games, and his ineffectiveness against lefties means Boone and the Yankees must thread the needle with his playing time to maximize the team’s chances of winning. It’s tough.

Let’s open this up to a straightforward yes/no vote. Once the results are in, I’ll be sure to forward them to the Yankees, and I trust they will handle the matter promptly. So, should the Yankees send Jasson Domínguez to Triple-A? (Poll closes at 8pm ET on Thursday.)