Outfielder Spencer Jones was the Yankees’ first-round pick in 2022, a selection that immediately brought about comparisons to the last 6-foot-7 college outfielder the Yankees drafted in the first round, Fresno State’s Aaron Judge way back in 2013. That pick worked out, in no small part because the Yankees were so patient with his development, and he showed an incredible ability to make adjustments at every stop up through the minors.
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The comparison itself was unfair, of course, especially with Judge in the middle of an MVP-winning season, but there are some significant differences even comparing the two at the same age. I saw Jones on Sunday night, the final game of Hudson Valley’s six-game series here in Wilmington, and I saw Judge several times as a prospect in the Yankees’ system, as well. They diverge primarily in their approaches at the plate. Judge had a much stronger awareness of his strike zone, and how pitchers were attacking him than Jones has shown this year. And thus Jones has a much longer way to go to get to his enormous power and become the player the Yankees hoped they were getting in the first round.
Like Judge, Jones is athletic and moves well, playing a solid center field on Sunday night and showing above-average speed once underway on the bases. Like a lot of taller hitters, he really likes the ball middle-away so he can get his arms extended more easily. When Wilmington’s pitchers came inside, which wasn’t often, Jones couldn’t make hard contact, but his hardest-hit ball of the night came on 94 middle-away, a pitch he lined hard down the left-field line for a double to open the game. It wasn’t a bad pitch, although the pitcher in question, right-hander Jackson Tetreault, had neither command nor a weapon for left-handed batters like Jones.
Where Jones’ approach falls short is in his recognition, whether it’s ball/strike or pitch type. He expands the zone too easily and too early in the count, and doesn’t seem to pick up spin well at all. You can see it in the overall stat line, with his 34 percent strikeout rate as a 22-year-old SEC product in High A, higher than Judge ever posted in the minors, and with a much lower walk rate of just 6.3 percent. But it’s just as evident in pitch data or if you just watch his at-bats – his strike zone is huge, and he hasn’t figured out how to cover the outer and inner third, or to identify breaking stuff, especially from lefties. I’ll always give athletic players more probability to figure things out, so I’m far from saying Jones isn’t going to work out, but he has a lot of work ahead of him.
More on prospects from the Yankees and Nationals systems:
• Hudson Valley has a pair of right-handers whose names you might see pop up in trade rumors this summer, Chase Hampton and Drew Thorpe. Hampton’s the better prospect of the two, working with a true five-pitch mix that offers multiple pitches that could end up plus, although I think he’d do better to simplify and drop one of them. His four-seamer is consistently 94-95 mph with some ride up in the zone. But the bread and butter here are his two breaking balls, a curveball at 77-81 mph that he even uses to lefties for called strikes or to get swings by backfooting it, and a slider at 85-87 mph that might be a “sweeper” and has pretty tight break and tilt. He also throws a cutter at 89-91 mph that I don’t think works for him and might be reducing the effectiveness of the slider; the cut is pretty minimal and it’s not missing bats. He might have that because he barely uses a changeup, but I’d rather see him work on the change more to see if it develops. He has something of a long arm swing and can land very stiffly on his front leg, but repeats it all well enough to see him getting to average control and maybe fringe-average command. I think he could be a back-end starter with some very small changes, like dropping one pitch from the repertoire. The Yanks took Hampton in the sixth round last year out of Texas Tech, and the pick already looks like a winner.
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• Thorpe was their second-round pick last year out of Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, offering a plus changeup and above-average curveball that, one hoped, would be enough to make up for a below-average heater. The formula isn’t working right now, as Wilmington’s hitters had no problem with his flat fastball at 91-93 mph, limiting his ability to get to the changeup, which is easily plus with great arm speed and some late fading action, or above-average curveball at 81-84 mph. Thorpe’s delivery has a ton of effort for someone who isn’t throwing that hard – in baseball terms, that is – with some head-whack at the end, in large part because he starts really accelerating his arm before his front leg is planted. He does throw strikes, but doesn’t have great fastball command to spot it where it’ll be harder to square up, and that delivery isn’t going to let him get there. He’s a Potemkin starter – it looks OK on the surface, but even a cursory look shows it’s not what it seems.
• Hudson Valley has some of the Yankees’ more notable prospects from international free agency as well, although the two biggest names aren’t off to great starts this year. Catcher Antonio Gomez has had a terrible May, striking out in 28 of his 78 plate appearances (36 percent), although I didn’t see as much swing and miss in the two games I caught, just some mixed contact and a couple of times caught looking. He can really throw, though. Shortstop Alexander Vargas is at least getting to some power, with strong wrists that let him make hard contact even though he’s still slender and looks like he’s got room to add some muscle, with a pair of hard-hit balls on Sunday night, although he whiffed very badly on sliders in his last two at-bats, chasing wildly even though they were well below the zone. He looks solid at shortstop with a plus arm.
• Jackson Tetreault was in Wilmington on rehab, but it didn’t go as planned, as he gave up seven runs in 2.2 innings. He was 93-96 mph with a power slurve at 85-88 mph and a two-plane curveball at 80-82 mph, but Hudson Valley hitters were all over the fastball and he showed nothing to get lefties out.
• Saturday’s game was James Wood’s last with Wilmington, as he was promoted to Double-A Harrisburg the next morning and debuted for the Senators on Sunday night. Wood’s last at-bat for the Blue Rocks was a long home run off a hanging breaking ball, after he’d struck out twice in the game. Wood is extremely toolsy, a 70 runner and 70 defender in center who gets great reads off the bat, while also showing 80 raw power. He’s a patient hitter, taking often early in counts even if it’s a strike, but with two strikes he expands way too much and starts chasing, which is why he punched out over 27 percent of the time in High A. Wood finished his tenure in Wilmington with a .293/.392/.580 line, even more impressive when you consider that Wilmington’s riverfront ballpark tends to suppress power, but he’s going to have to tighten up his approach in Double A, reducing that tendency to chase and working on breaking ball recognition.
• With Wood gone, the Blue Rocks don’t have any strong hitting prospects for the moment – at least until third baseman Brady House moves up from Low-A Fredericksburg, where the 20-year-old is hitting .293/.381/.519. Outfielder Jeremy de la Rosa is a plus runner who’ll take an occasional walk, but he swings and misses a ton and has maybe 40 power. Jared McKenzie and Trey Lipscomb, both drafted last year, have struggled badly despite being on the older side for High A — with McKenzie even having trouble with good velocity, while Lipscomb can hit a fastball but nothing else. And Jordy Barley is so bad at breaking-ball recognition he would strike out playing spin the bottle. We need House and his fellow outfield prospect Daylen Lile up here, stat.
(Top photo of Spencer Jones: Cliff Welch / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
