The Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders placed Jasson Dominguez on the seven-day injured list today, after the outfield prospect made an early exit from Saturday’s game. Yankees manager Aaron Boone told the New York Post’s Gary Phillips and other reporters that Dominguez is dealing with a left side injury and is still undergoing more testing to determine the extent of the problem.
Since Dominguez is not far removed from Tommy John surgery rehab, it makes sense that the Yankees would immediately take the precaution of putting Dominguez on the IL, even if tests don’t reveal a more severe issue like an oblique strain. The outfielder would’ve likely sat out at least a few games anyway, plus the RailRaiders have an off-day on Monday so Dominguez might miss just six games if all goes well.
However, an oblique strain could lead to another extended stay on the injured list for “the Martian,” given how oblique problems can linger for weeks or even months. The hope is that Dominguez can avoid such a setback, given how the TJ surgery already provided one early roadblock after his tantalizing Major League debut last season.
Heralded as one of baseball’s top prospects, Dominguez added to the hype by hitting .258/.303/.677 with four home runs in his first 33 plate appearances before suffering a torn UCL. He was officially reinstated from the 60-day IL and optioned to Triple-A earlier this week, though he had already banked quite a bit of minor league playing time during his rehab assignments. Dominguez has an outstanding .356/.404/.609 slash line in 94 combined PA at the Single-A, Double-A, and Triple-A levels in 2024, so there is little doubt that the 21-year-old is ready for the majors.
If Dominguez is able to return in relatively short order, the injury might not throw off whatever plan the Yankees had in place for his next promotion. The first-place Yankees have the luxury of not really needing Dominguez at the moment, with Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, and Alex Verdugo all excelling in the everyday outfield, and Giancarlo Stanton having a resurgent season as the regular DH. Dominguez would theoretically be an upgrade over backup outfielder Trent Grisham, though New York prefers to have Dominguez playing every day in the minors than only getting sparing playing time as a bench player.
I feel like Dominguez has been a top prospect for about a decade now.
And he’s still only 16! Okay, I think he night be 21 now.
This should remove the constant chattering to promote him as the Bronx faithful wanted the team to cut Grisham, cut Stanton, do anything to give a prospect PAs from veterans on a team playing .690 ball.
He’ll be up sometime in August as they’ll eventually want him on the postseason roster.
The bigger issue is Dominguez and Greg Allen, who also went on the minor league IL yesterday, are the backups for the major league roster in CF. Everson Pereira also went on the season-ending IL. Those three were the MLB backups and all went down within a week. One injury to Judge, Soto, Verdugo or Grisham suddenly creates a significant depth problem on the big-league roster.
Agreed 99, were suddenly thin on depth beyond the majors. Oscar Gonzalez would be the callup if needed.
The hugest bust since Letha Weapons?
Who would have predicted he has more injuries than Stanton
Torres, Rizzo, DJ, Volpe and Wells never Hit
Frankie: It’s not 2023, Volpe has been hitting plenty.
It’s time to replace some struggling Vets and DFA them before the trade deadline. I’m talking about Rizzo and DJ. I would also replace Torres. Rizzo to be replaced by Rice, Torres by Durbin and DJ by Pereza. The kids can’t do anymore worse than the regulars. It’s time to see what the prospects can do if Yankees have any chance keeping Soto to reduce payroll
they have best record in MLB… but yeah, blow it up and let the kids play LMFAO
Durbin is hurt, Peraza is hitting .150, and Rizzo is loved by his teammates. You don’t do radical things when you’re winning. Next year Torres is gone and possibly Rizzo.