New York Yankees star Minor League shortstop Anthony Volpe has been grabbing all the headlines as of late, but the attention has now turned to 18-year-old phenom Jasson Dominguez, who started with Low-A Tampa last season in his first stint with the Yankees’ farm system.
Dominguez enjoyed 56 games of action, despite the Covid pandemic disrupting baseball the last two years. Over 206 at-bats, Dominguez posted a .252 average with five homers and 19 RBIs.
The Dominican Republic native also contributed nine stolen bases, 27 walks, and only grounded into one double play. As for his fielding, he recorded a .969 fielding percentage with two errors over 355.2 innings. While we can expect that number to increase as time goes on, Dominguez showcased the benchmark of what he’s capable of.
The Yankees have swayed toward different analytics and ignored batting average over the past few seasons, and with Dominguez’s lucrative power, he fits the mold perfectly.
However, general manager Brian Cashman gushed about his talent, noting his work ethic as a primary catalyst behind his developmental success.
“His work ethic is exceptional; his will to be successful is exceptional,” Cashman said recently, via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. “When you engage all the departments, whether it’s player development, performance science, the measurables that come along with it — he’s basically an anomaly, something that doesn’t come along very often.”
There’s a reason that people call Dominguez “The Martian,” considering he’s 5-foot-10 and 190 pounds at just 18-years-old. His size and speed combinations give him the potential to be a Mike Trout-level prospect, but of course, he has a long way to go before testing those waters.
“There’s a lot of very talented people, and he has a higher level of degree and talent than most,” Cashman said. “If he can obviously put that together and match that to his performance level, you’re going to be talking about something very special.”
Even Kevin Reese, the Yankees Vice President of Player Development, was raving about Jasson’s capabilities:
“Everywhere he goes, he’s turning heads,” Reese said. “His ability to connect with people, his ability to lead at such a young age, the exit velo, the speed. Some of the measurables that we do on our performance science side, it’s all off the charts. We just want to get him to play more baseball; I think all of the skill is there, all of the ability is there.”