This week's mailbag covers Yankees prospect Spencer Jones, comps for a Mason Miller trade, and trade deadline situations involving the Angels, Blue Jays, Cubs, and Dodgers.
Angel asks:
Do you believe the Yankees now view Spencer Jones as untouchable? His trajectory is so similar to Judge's, but I'd sign right now for 75% of Judge.
Jack asks:
Why does it feel like lots of the Yankees prospects don’t pan out in the MLB? Do you believe it’s because they’re overhyped, poor player development, a mix of both, or something completely else?
Sandy asks:
Volpe made another critical error last night. He seems to wilt under pressure in clutch defensive situations even if his dWar is positive at 0.8. Are the Yankees having second thoughts about their long-term shortstop? Should they? His bat has never been up to league average. Thanks!
Charles asks:
What would it take for the Yanks to get Bednar, Keller, and IKF in a package from the Pirates? It seems that if they are going to be contenders they need something like that.
Jones is an interesting and polarizing prospect. His stock seemed to drop in 2024, as he spent the season at Double-A and posted a 127 wRC+ with a whopping 36.8% strikeout rate.
In another 208 PA at the level this year, Jones still struck out 33.7% of the time, but posted a massive 186 wRC+ to earn a Triple-A promotion. That came on June 27th. He has since annihilated Triple-A pitching with a 205 wRC+, which includes 10 home runs in 79 PA. His strikeout rate for the RailRiders is down to 26.6%.
The sample size makes this tricky. Jones tinkers with his swing a lot, but 79 PA isn't enough to say that he's truly cut the strikeouts. If he'd struck out five additional times in Triple-A - one additional time every three games - his K% would be 32.9.
The error bars on Jones are wide, but the odds are currently stacked against him becoming a star. Jones' Double-A sample is still bigger than his Triple-A one. Let's see if we can find some comps who struck out at least 30% of the time at Double-A at age 24 or younger while posting a 130 wRC+ or better.
- 2014: Joey Gallo
- 2015: Will Swanner
- 2016: Yoan Moncada, Dylan Cozens, Nellie Rodriguez
- 2017: Eric Haase
- 2019: Colton Shaver, Riley Adams, Vince Fernandez, Drew Ward
Gallo and Moncada at least had a few star-caliber seasons in the Majors between them. Otherwise, these guys did not become stars or even MLB regulars. They also did not cut their strikeout rates and dominate Triple-A pitching, so if Jones keeps that up he'll be charting a new trajectory.
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The mailbag sure could use a More button after the first one or two questions.
I’m confused by this question. Is this an ask for a magic “More Content” button or just a formatting request?
I really miss Joey Gallo. Anyway we can get him back in pinstripes somehow?
“Back in pinstripes”..Joey Gallo? What a coincidence; I was at the downtown NYC “Olive Garden” last night and Joey Gallo was my waiter.
All it would take in my opinion, is an offer better than $11/hr and $50 in tips every night.
Joey reportedly likes pasta, so you might want to incorporate some Mac & cheese into your recruitment pitch.
I suspect Freeland would be moved by Friedman; although this package is probably not the one he wants—as you suggest Tim.
Well, I guess you can scratch off the Yankees as a team going for Suarez, just read an article that states an official from the Yankee front office has said they are turning their attention to McMahon from the Rockies with his 6-year 77mil he signs last season instead of renting Suarez.
He’s just pointing out that 76 AAA at bats is a small sample size.
If GMs still think Dodger prospects are the pot at the end of the rainbow they should look around at all the LA prospect flops over the past 5 years.
Lots of hype from the Dodgers but when it comes down to it, LA is the juggernaut because of the doo-ray-me that they shell out for Free Agents, not developing prospects. There’s nothing in Freeland’s career so far that says any different.
I can’t deny they’ve bought their way into contention, but I think even though the Cubs paid a fairly high price for him, Michael Busch has turned into not only a top notch first baseman, but one of the best bats in their lineup. He was a highly rated Dodger prospect they couldn’t find room for.
Pepiot has been better than Glasnow as well. Not sure who Pete’s referring to, but every team’s prospects are hit or miss.
There was a run in which trades didn’t work out so well for Dodgers counterparties. Rangers got Willy Calhoun, AJ Alexy, and Brendon Davis for Darvish. O’s got Yusniel Diaz, Dean Kremer, Zach Pop, and a couple others for Machado. Nats got Josiah Gray and Keibert Ruiz for Scherzer and Turner. Kremer has had a decent career as a back-end rotation guy and Ruiz got a long contract, but overall the returns didn’t turn out great.
Jones’ strikeout rate isn’t the most alarming thing, it’s the pitches he’s missing consistently, specifically fastballs in the zone. The Pirates had a prospect not long ago putting up prodigious power numbers in the minors. His name was Mason Martin. Martin would crush mistakes and miss hittable pitches. He’s been mashing HRs in independent ball for a couple of seasons since leaving the Pirates organization. Not ready to write Jones off as another Martin, but they have similar profiles — long swings, trouble making contact, and loud contact when he runs into one. He’s easily a better fielder than Martin ever was, which will probably earn him a chance in the bigs at some point.
I think you have to dive a little deeper on the AAA numbers (in addition to a larger sample size) before you can say he’s turning a corner. His recent 2-HR game came against two journeymen garbage pitchers. None of the 10 AAA HRs were against pitchers with any kind of future in the MLB. Only one of his hits (a double) came against a top pitcher (Andrew Painter). I wouldn’t lose hope in Jones just yet, but I’ll be interested to see his numbers once teams have more of a scouting book on him and he faces a few more elite pitchers.
After watching most of S Jones AAA games, he is swinging and missing a bunch. When he makes contact its solid. Once they get a book on him I feel the strikeouts will elevate