Quick thoughts before the Yankees call up Jasson Domínguez and Austin Wells

You’ll have to trust me that Jasson is No. 12.

The season is lost and the Yankees are putting the pedal to the floor with their quasi-youth movement. Outfielder Jasson Domínguez and catcher Austin Wells will be called up Friday according to the usual reporters (Jack Curry has it and that’s all I need). I ranked them the No. 2 and No. 6 prospects in the system before the season. Domínguez and Wells will be big leaguers later this week. Fun!

I figured Domínguez would come up in September. I think it’s an aggressive move – Domínguez has played basically one series in Triple-A – with a tinge of “ignore everything else and look at this shiny new toy!” desperation, but you know what? That’s fine. A month in the big leagues won’t derail Domínguez’s development, and if it does, he probably wasn’t going to make it anyway.

Domínguez is in the middle of a major heater. He is 12-for-27 (.444) with two doubles, a triple, five walks, and two strikeouts in eight Triple-A games, and he’s hitting .346/.417/.505 (150 wRC+) in 235 plate appearances since July 1st between Double-A and Triple-A. That doesn’t mean a whole lot – Everson Pereira was red hot at the time of his call up too – though it’s hard to say the call up is undeserved. Jasson forced the issue.

Assuming he plays Friday, Domínguez will debut at 20 years and 206 days old. Righties Eury Pérez (Marlins) and AJ Smith-Shawver (Braves) debuted at a slightly younger age earlier this season, though Domínguez will be the youngest position player since Wander Franco debuted at 20 years and 113 days in 2021. Here are the last five players younger than Domínguez to appear in a game with the Yankees:

• Jose Rijo: 19 years and 54 days on July 6th, 1984
• Stan Javier: 20 years and 111 days on April 29th, 1984
• Gene Nelson: 20 years and 188 days on June 9th, 1981
• Domingo Ramos: 20 years and 163 days on Sept. 8th, 1978
• Frank Tepedino: 19 years and 223 days on July 4th, 1967

The early hype on Domínguez was insane and incredibly unfair, and there are a lot of fans who will consider anything short of superstardom a failure. That’s their loss. If you’re reading this, you understand there’s a wide range of very good outcomes between bust and superstar. Domínguez has a chance to be really, really good, and getting to the big leagues this quickly (and not undeservedly) despite losing his age 17 season to the pandemic is awfully impressive.

As for Wells, he’s performed well since being promoted to Triple-A Scranton a few weeks ago – .262/.355/.467 (104 wRC+) with five homers and 23.4% strikeouts in 32 games – and I’m most curious to see how much he catches. The Yankees insist they believe he can catch, but if he comes up and spends most of his time at first base* or DH, we’ll know they feel differently.

* The Yankees were planning to get Wells work at first base in September, though I don’t know whether he actually started any of that work in Scranton. He has never appeared in a game at first as a pro. Wells did play some first in college, for what it’s worth.

What will be the roster move for Wells? The Yankees could send down Ben Rortvedt, but he is Gerrit Cole’s personal catcher, and that’s the right guy to have in your corner. If the Yankees were going to cut Kyle Higashioka, they probably would’ve done it earlier this week so he could hook on with another team before Thursday’s 11:59pm ET postseason roster eligibility deadline.

Given all that, I expect the Yankees to carry three catchers the rest of the season even though a) you only get one extra position player in September, and b) none of the catchers can play other positions (other than Wells at first base, I guess). The workload behind the plate could look like this:

• Rortvedt catches Cole.
• Higashioka catches one of the other starters.
• Wells catches the other three starters.

That would jibe with the “we’re playing the kids and playing them a lot” approach the Yankees are taking. In Wells' case, there is a ton – A TON – of value in coming up and sitting in on pitcher/catcher meetings, and even just catching bullpen sessions. He has to play and he will, but a lot of learning takes place behind the scenes for young catchers.

Assuming the Yankees keep three catchers, Jake Bauers is the obvious move to clear a roster spot for Wells. Bauers has three plate appearances in the last week and he’s started one of the last 10 games. He’s slumping hard (3-for-40 with 22 strikeouts) and he doesn’t bring much to the table defensively. Oswaldo Cabrera and Isiah Kiner-Falefa are versatile enough to cover just about every position, so two catchers on a five-player bench is doable.

(Domínguez will step into Harrison Bader’s roster spot. I’ll have more on the Bader situation in Friday’s post. I’m sure you’ve heard by now the Yankees put him on waivers for the purposes of a salary dump. His waiver period expires Thursday and he’ll get claimed.)

UPDATE: I'm an idiot. Bader getting claimed and the extra September roster spot is all the room the Yankees need for Domínguez and Wells. No need to cut Bauers.

Katie Sharp says that when Domínguez, Peraza, Pereira, and Anthony Volpe (the veteran of the group) get into a game together, it will be the first time the Yankees have four position players in the starting lineup aged 23-and-under since Sept. 18th, 1969 (Tepedino, Ron Blomberg, Thurman Munson, Bobby Murcer). We could see this lineup at some point:

1. 1B DJ LeMahieu
2. RF Aaron Judge
3. 2B Gleyber Torres
4. DH Giancarlo Stanton
5. SS Anthony Volpe
6. C Austin Wells (holy crap a lefty!)
7. RF Everson Pereira
8. CF Jasson Domínguez
9. 3B Oswaldo Peraza

If you would have told me in Spring Training that Domínguez, Peraza, Pereira, Volpe, and Wells (and Cabrera?) would all be in the starting lineup together at some point this season, I would have assumed it happened in Scranton. It happening in the big leagues is kinda nuts. Nuts and also very fun. It really sucks the season has gone off the rails, but getting to see all these kids the final few weeks is a nice consolation.

The Yankees are throwing Domínguez and Wells right into the fire Friday – good luck against Justin Verlander in Houston in your MLB debut, guys – but look at it as an opportunity. We’ll all be able to reminisce about the time they got their first big league hits in the same game against a future Hall of Famer. I think the Domínguez call up is aggressive, but I’m excited. Kudos to the Yankees for going all-in on youth as soon as they fell out of the race.

(Send your requests for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com. The random Yankee series is on hiatus, but feel free to send in requests for when it returns.)