What can the Yankees expect out of Spencer Jones in 2026?

Spencer Jones is one of the most difficult prospects to summarize; on one hand, the Yankees’ former first-round pick has tantalizing power to go with speed that is unnatural for someone his size.

Then you have to factor in the beyond-awful contact rates that are so low that there isn’t much precedent for that kind of hitter panning out in the big leagues.

There are a lot of variables that are working for and against Jones, but ultimately the Yankees decided against giving him the open lane to make the roster on Opening Day by signing both Cody Bellinger and Trent Grisham.

Jasson Dominguez, who has his own complictated roster role, would almost certainly get priority over Jones as well in the scenario where an injury occurred.

It leaves the Yankees with a difficult question that is layered and impossible to deliver a flawless argument for, and it puts Spencer Jones under plenty of pressure going into 2026.

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The Yankees Face an Uncertain Outlook For Spencer Jones

Last season was incredibly productive for Spencer Jones, who had a .932 OPS and 153 wRC+ hitting 35 home runs in 116 games between Double-A and Triple-A.

His outlier physical tools were married with a swing that generates plenty of contact in the air, a departure from what we saw in 2023 and 2024 where he had more groundballs.

There’s still a very line-to-line approach, but those line drives can leave the yard while groundballs are mostly outs or singles.

Unfortunately there hasn’t been much progress made with his contact rates in-zone, which are Joey Gallo-esque, but the comparison to the former Yankee left fielder is a bit misguided at-best.

Joey Gallo was consistently one of the best swing-decision makers in the game, laying off of pitches out of zone while being aggressive in-zone.

We can measure this using the metric SEAGER which was developed by Robert Orr of Baseball Prospectus, as it evaluates a hitter’s tendency to swing out of zone and weighs it against their tendency to swing at hittable pitches.

Instead of just labeling aggressive hitters as poor plate discipline guys, we can evaluate their approach wholistically, with hitters such as Bo Bichette grading out well in this model because he’s a good bad-ball hitter and leans into it.

Gallo balanced patience and a tendency to take pitches out of zone with a high in-zone swing rate at pitches he could crush, consistently grading out above the 90th Percentile in his peak years from 2017-2021.

Spencer Jones graded out in the 37th Percentile in this model at Triple-A last season because of his sky-high Chase rates which were meshed with good-not-great aggression at hittable pitches.

Furthermore, Jones is 25 and hasn’t debuted while Gallo had been an MLB veteran at this point in his age curve, but there are some differences that actually work in our no. 7 prospect’s favor.

Spencer Jones plays centerfield and does it well, he’s a better runner and overall athlete than Joey Gallo is in my opinion which should put less pressure on his bat.

I also believe Jones has a better feel for hitting the ball on a line instead of having an extreme flyball approach, which should allow for a much higher average than Gallo’s low .200s mark.

These do matter when evaluating the totality of the player because I think the outcomes where Jones is an above-average big leaguer are more dynamic and varied than people think.

He could be a +8 Outs Above Average centerfielder who puts up +3 Baserunning Run Value, and in that outcome a 100 OPS+ would make him a firmly above-average starter at the position.

There’s also the world where he has to move to a corner spot and is a .600 OPS player, which case he wouldn’t last very long on the Yankees’ big-league roster.

To put this simply; Spencer Jones is a mystery box who could be incredible but could also be unplayably awful and cost the team multiple wins due to his uncompetitive at-bats.

In order to find out, the Yankees would have to play him consistently for an extended portion of the season, risking the outcome where he’s uncompetitive and taking at-bats from less volatile players.

They also risk not finding out and seeing him blossom into a star elsewhere, in which case they’ll be searching for a centerfielder in an uninspiring 2027 marketplace for one.