Jasson Dominguez

They call him the “Martian,” based on his freakish physical talent and size at just 17 years old. With an exit velocity reaching 108 mph, New York Yankees‘ Jasson Dominguez is one of the more polarizing prospects in all of baseball.

In fact, Dominguez is considered so highly, he ended at number 33 in Baseball America top 100 prospect list. Despite not even playing a minor-league game yet, Dominguez contains all of the tools necessary to be the next Mike Trout. He has all five tools, hitting, hitting for power, running, fielding, and throwing. His jump from number 38 to 33 is based simply on potential, despite not having seen him play a live-action game yet.

The outfielder ranks in between two other Yankee prospects, including Deivi Garcia, who is at number five, and Clarke Schmidt at number 64.

When the Yankees originally inked him to an international deal, they knew what type of prospect he could become. However, the optimism has ballooned so high that his expectations are astronomical. Based on scouting reports, though, he has every ability to reach them.

Donny Rowland, the Yankees top international scout, had glowing reviews about Jasson Dominguez when they initially signed him:

“The hardest thing to do in sports is hit and the second hardest thing to do is figure out who’s going to hit,” Rowland said. “We have 50-plus official submitted reports on him very high hit grades and power grades. Swing is very good both sides. The explosion, and his exit velocity touching 108 (mph). His launch angle is in the happy zone. We saw him work out on July 1. The final footage. … He threw and had a well-above average arm. The most impressive aspect is that the accuracy is just as good as arm-strength.”

At just 17 years old, the expectation is that Dominguez will likely spend a few years in the Yankees’ minor-league system but could find his way to the top team within the next few seasons. He’s a Martian, after all, with incredible power for his age. He simply has to get used to facing off against pitchers with high velocity, and due to the minor-league season being canceled in 2020, his development has stagnated.

Reps, reps, and more reps are what Dominguez needs, and if he shows significant growth in his first year, he could rise through the ranks similar to Garcia, who made the jump to the MLB in after just one year in the minors.

A 17-year-old kid should not be able to hit baseballs as hard as Jasson Dominguez of the New York Yankees Prospect ranks. The Bombers signed him to an international deal this past off-season and were preparing to feature him in 2020 in his first professional season. However, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down operations across baseball, forcing Dominguez to wait one more year for his first opportunity in pinstripes.

Dominguez is considered a five-tool player, with incredible slugging power, something the Yankees have focused on in recent years with their new analytical approach.

Theoretically, if they can hit more home runs, they can guarantee runs on the scoreboard. Contact hitters and getting on base does not guarantee points, so this is an interesting and logical way to ensure your team has a chance of winning due to offensive proficiency.

Dominguez undoubtedly backs up that approach, and just take a look at this incredible video of the young outfielder smashing baseballs over 100 mph.

Jasson Dominguez is 17 years old and hits the ever living shit out of the baseball pic.twitter.com/3326emQyZp

— The Short Porch (@short_porch) December 3, 2020

Do the New York Yankees have the next generational star in their farm system?

Some say that Dominguez is capable of being a generational talent, and hitting a 104 mph ball at his age is simply astounding. Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge are capable of hitting 120 mph plus, but Dominguez hitting this hard without much movement and from slower pitches is incredible. It is almost reminiscent of Prince Fielder being able to hit homers with barely double digits on his age.

MLB Pipeline has compared Dominguez to greats like Bo Jackson, Mickey Mantle, and Mike Trout. He signed a $5.1 million deal out of the Dominican Republic in 2019 and considering his well above-average tools, his much anticipated professional debut can’t come soon enough.

Without ever playing a minor-league game, he already ranks at the top of the Yankees’ prospect list. Incredibly, pitcher Deivi Garcia ranks in third place, below Dominguez, despite having enjoyed Major League experience.

Despite his girthy size, he’s considered the Yankees’ best athlete and power hitter, two traits upper management salivate over. It is going to be exciting to watch his development and how quickly he can make it to the top team.

For most 17-year-olds, receiving $5.1 million overnight may lead to an unexpected (and perhaps irresponsible) spending spree. Fortunately, that’s not the case with New York Yankees‘ phenom Jasson Dominguez.

That’s the amount of money Dominguez got from the New York Yankees last year as a signing bonus ahead of the international free agent period. And, apart from acquiring a house for his parents in the Dominican Republic, he has avoided making big expenses and buying pricey things for himself.

The Yankees got themselves a good young kid, level-headed and centered. He is hard-working, he is incredible talented, and he seems to make sound decisions both on and off of the field.

Recently, Domiguez bought a new car. But no, it wasn’t a luxury one. According to his agent Gio Rodriguez, the Yankees’ young outfielder wanted to keep a relatively low profile when it comes to his automobile choice.

“This is my Bugatti,” Dominguez said with a proud grin. As the pair looked at the vehicle in question, they shared a laugh.

The Yankees’ prospect has shown he is level-headed

“He bought himself a Honda Accord, and I’m not even sure it was new,” Rodriguez said, according to MLB.com. “That’s just the kind of person he is. There’s no flash. He just needed something safe and reliable to get back and forth from the field each day. This guy is not buying into the hype. His goal is to prove to the Yankees that they signed the right kid and earn everything he gets.”

Dominguez, the Yankees’ top prospect, hasn’t made his pro debut because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The year 2020 was a lot different than what I expected,” Dominguez said in Spanish. “I expected to play my first professional season and get to experience what that felt like. I wanted to live the experience, but COVID changed everything. But I learned how to adapt. What I’ve learned, and what I think everyone in the world is learning, is how to adapt and live with what is happening.”

“My hope for next season is to meet the expectations I have for myself and people have of me,” Dominguez said. “That’s my goal and that’s why I’ve never stopped working out.”

The New York Yankees coming off another disappointing season, are spending the offseason looking for ways to improve the team. They have to deal with a multitude of players that have become free agents and some with options. They also have some significant decisions to make with players that didn’t perform as well as the Yankees would have liked. For Yankee fans, they want the team to get good enough to win another World Championship. With all of that in mind, many fans wonder if the amazing player they have heard about, Jasson Dominguez, will be ready to join the team this season. Sadly, for the time being, the answer is no.

There is no question that the young man that will turn 18 on February 2nd has the talent to play at the Stadium. The question is it right to push the young man that hard. If you asked the Dominican star, he would probably say yes. But the New York Yankees have a process not only to build a baseball player but to build a Yankee. There is precedent for debuting a player as young as Jasson. The Youngest ever was Joe Nuxhall; he was a 15-year-old pitcher for the Cinncinati Reds back in n1944. There have been a few sixteen-year-olds and even more seventeen and eighteen-year-olds. All tolled, there have been more than 20 teenagers that have made the opening day lineup.

Some of these youngsters excelled and some not so much. One became a Major League manager, one, Bobby Doerr, the Red Sox second baseman, became a baseball Hall of Famer. The Yankees have never been big on starting kids young. Mickey Mantle was the youngest ever Yankee in the modern era (1900). We all know how that baseball career turned out. Mantle started with the Yankees at the age of 19, 179 days. The youngest pitcher was Cornelius Joseph Brady at the age of 18. More recently, Derek Jeter debuted with the Yankees at the age of 20.

To fully understand the young Jasson Dominguez, you need to start at the beginning. Jason was born in Valverde Province, the Dominican Republic    to Felix Dominguez and his mother Dorca Gonzalez. You could say that Jasson was a Yankee fan from birth, as his father was a big time Yankee fan and named his son after Yankee slugger Jason Giambi. The young Jasson accompanied his father to the grocery store, where they had a television to watch New York Yankee games.

By the age of eight, with his father’s nurturing he was actively playing baseball and working with different academies before he signed on with noted buscone Ivan Noboa at age 13. According to Yankees Magazine, Dominguez and Noboa made bets on each other. Dominguez saw Noboa’s track record, the Major Leaguers that he had produced, including Nomar Mazara, who earned a then-record $5 million bonus from the Rangers in 2011. He was willing to commit a percentage of his future earnings in exchange for years of training from Noboa and his team of instructors. On the other side, Noboa saw the same things that American teams’ scouts would notice over the next few years. A work ethic and an attitude that, when combined with a body that was advanced far beyond most kids his age, projected to something special enough to be worth one of the three or four spots available at the academy in any given year.

“He wasn’t fully developed,” Noboa says, with González translating. “You could see that he had the hitting ability, but he didn’t have the power. And he was only like 5-foot-4 when I first met him. You could project him, guess that he was going to develop into what he did, obviously with time and work.”

Under Noboa’s direction Dominguez would wake up between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. every day and begin his demanding routine. Mornings were for defense and conditioning, then batting practice before lunch. After some time cleaning the house and a quick nap, he’d head to the gym around 2 p.m. for a full workout. Sometimes he’d add in a second afternoon hitting session. School? That was on Saturday.

Within a year or so, Dominguez was racing toward the top of the class, drawing all kinds of attention around the island. Every team was sending scouts, including the New York Yankees. Donny Rowland runs the Yankees’ international scouting department, and, in concert with the player development staff in Tampa and the executives in New York. Rowland had been getting amazing reports on the young Jasson Dominguez. The Yankees’ affinity for Jasson Dominguez can be summed up by his cost. Rarely does a 16-year-old Latin American player demand $5 million, let alone get it. On July 2, 2019 Dominguez signed a $5.1 million contract with the Yankees.

We are talking about a player that can play the outfield, centerfield in particular, pitch and catch. Add to that the he regularly hits homers over the fences and beyond the trees of the Yankee training academy. Plus he is a switch-hitter. Also when you look at Dominguez you don’t see a boy of 17, you see a monster of a man that looks ten years older and in the prime of his career.

Before siging the contact with the Yankees, Jasson Dominguez said this:

“On July 1, it was only rumors,” Jasson says some six months later. “Nothing was a fact. July 3, it was a fact. … I had a goal, I worked for my goal, I reached my goal. But that’s in the past. I need to set up new goals.

“But also, I was thinking, ‘This is the time. I’m here. I’m doing it.’ And I felt like I had proved to other people that might have their doubts that I could do the things that I knew that I could do.”

All the scouts include Rowland were seeing the likes of Mickey Mantle and Mike Trout in Dominguez. And that became even more evident when Jasson arrived at the Yankees academy in Boca Chica, DR.  That was when he was only 16 years old. Since then an already muscular young man has turned into a monster of a man, far beyond his years. He has grown seven inches sinced he work with Noboa, and put on thirty pound of muscle, he is 5′ 10″ and 195 pounds.

When you look at Dominguez the first thing you see is his broad shoulders, massive biceps and thighs the size of Volkswagens. Then as he talks you are brought back down to reality when you see the braces on his teeth. Teeth don’t straigten quickly and either does the making of a New York Yankee. There is a process. Whether you call Jasson the “Martian,” due to his out of this world talent, or “Monster” because his massive build, the reality is that he is still a kid.

The process of becoming a Yankee involves constant work outs. Hitting instruction and fielding instruction, but it also involves classwork. Classwork on how to conduct yourself and how to be a Yankees and represent the tradition of the team.

“I think there’s just a sense of urgency that’s coming with his work,” says Andrew Wright, the director of the Yankees’ Dominican academy. “It’s go time now. I know you talk about that clock, that he’s now got to think about preparing himself for a long career, but every day has to matter. He came in understanding that, but I think you can really see it now. He’s competitive. And he’s also a 17-year-old kid. You’ve got to understand that he has to be afforded the same perspective that you would give any other 17-year-old. I think that’s one of the things that we really have to be cognizant of, as the people who are trying to guide him through his first years in professional baseball.”

Jasson is a Christian. In his Instagram bio, his first descriptive word of himself is “Christian,” followed by the hashtag #GodFirst with prayer emoji hands. He is a young man on a mission to become the best baseball player ever. Whether he makes his major league debut this year of next, depends on his progress. What might be telling, is if the Yankees invite him to summer camp in Tampa at George M. Steinbrenner Field, if they do that might be a path to playing in the minors with the Tampa A team. If that doesn’t happen he will likely spend another year at the Yankee Academy in the Dominican Republic. Whichever the case the Yankees may just have a generational baseball star in the making.

EmpireSportsMedia.com’s Columnist William Parlee is a member of the Society for American Baseball Research. Follow me on Twitter @parleewilliam

The New York Yankees are now officially starting to scramble to make decisions to improve the team for the 2021 season.  After a very disappointing coronavirus season that saw the Tampa Bay Rays beat the Yankees and become East division champs, and a failed postseason with the same Rays beating them again, ending their season, the Yankees have a bundle of decisions to make. Decisions on players that have reached free agency, players with options, and how to fill the holes that the team suffers from now and ones that may come up in the offseason, such as losing some coaches.

Will Jasson Dominguez be impactful in 2021?

It seems like New York Yankee fans have been waiting for five years now for Jasson Dominguez to make his debut at Yankee Stadium. Fans have heard all kinds of news on the near inhuman baseball player that has been working hard in the Dominican Republic to become the best baseball player in the game.

The fact is that the young man is still just 17 years old. It hasn’t been five years since the Yankees signed him to a contract, when he was only 16, almost two years ago. But fans have seen videos of the extraordinary that looks like a player 10 years older and in the prime of his career. So will Dominguez make his major league debut in 2021?

There is no clear answer; we will probably see him at Yankee Stadium in pinstripes sometime during the 2021 season. We may even be surprised to see him working out with the team during spring training. The young man that has been compared to the likes of Mike Trout and Mickey Mantle will turn 18 on February 2nd, just three weeks before spring training camp, again plays at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida. Below is the latest video of Dominguez working to prepare for that eventuality.

Another Jasson Dominguez video that will leave you shocked he’s only 17 years old… pic.twitter.com/grTzWngbwY

— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) October 27, 2020

4 Yankees are now officially free agents with more to come

At the top of that list is second baseman DJ LeMahieu. James Paxton, Masahiro Tanaka, and J.A. Happ, who did not meet his vesting eligibility in the 2021 season. If the Yankees can reach a deal with LeMahieu, they will certainly sign the award-winning player. He has an option for $18.9 million for a one-year extension, but he will want more than that, at least over $20 million and not for a year. He will likely look for a 3-4 year contract that could reach $80 million or more. Much more than that will mean in the cash-short offseason; they could potentially let him walk.

Beyond LeMahieu, what the Yankees will do with Tanaka, Paxton, and Happ is far less clear. If the New York Yankees offer a contract to only one of the three, it will most likely be Masahiro Tanaka, as he has stayed healthy and has been a dependable pitcher for the Yankees was signed from Japan. The last two seasons haven’t been that great, but the Yankees might be willing to sign him for a discount.

It looks like Domingo German will be in the 2021 rotation

There are reports out of the Dominican Republic that Domingo German will be reporting for winter ball there soon. He will join Gary Sanchez and Miguel Andujar, hoping to improve their games after very disappointing seasons. The trio reportedly will play for Toros Del Este this week, according to ESPN Deportes. Andujar couldn’t get hitting this past season and never really found a place with the team, but very much wants to play back at Yankees Stadium. Sanchez had a horrible season being the Yankee’s worst player. Domingo German, the Yankees’ best pitcher in 2019, is rusty after serving a season-long suspension for violating the MLB domestic rules.

New York Yankees could lose key coaches throughout the system

With so many managerial and coaching positions open this offseason, it seems like the Yankees have been targeted to fill many of those positions with other teams.  One key one is Carlos Mendoza, manager Aaron Boone’s bench coach and right-hand man. Mendoza has reportedly been interviewed by the Boston Red Sox as they look to replace their interim manager after firing Alex Cora, who was involved in the Houston Astros cheating scandal.

Another loss the Yankees could endure is losing Marcus Thames, the Yankee’s pitching coach; he has already been interviewed by the Detroit Tigers Manager, resulting from the retirement of Ron Gardenhire. Reportedly Thames is on the shortlist to become the new Tiger’s manager. The Yankees might lose their three year 3rd base coach as well. Phil Nevin has been guiding Yankee players for years and has experience with the Arizona Diamondbacks as well. It is unlikely the Yankees will lose all three of these coaches, but like will have at least one position to fill.

These days, it’s increasingly hard to be a top prospect in baseball. Expectations that these young players have on their shoulders are absurd. And, in the specific case of New York Yankees‘ wonderkid Jasson Dominguez, things are getting out of hand in a hurry. Basically, he’s getting comparisons to current star and already all-time great Mike Trout, which is unfair given that he hasn’t even played stateside yet.

“We have a joke where we say, ‘Hey, don’t believe the movie,’” Dominguez’s agent, Gio Rodriguez of CAA Baseball, said to Forbes this week. “And it’s a big thing for us. We kind of bounce that off each other all the time. And I’ll kind of mess with him and say, ‘You haven’t done anything yet.’ Let everybody else hype it up and all that, but we’re not believing the hype.

“We’re going to work. So that’s what this kid has done. He’s put his head down since the day he signed. He’s seen the expectations out there, and he’s seen (his) trading cards going for thousands and thousands of dollars, but he just hasn’t believed yet. He’s working out like he’s still looking for a bonus. And he hasn’t stopped.”

Not believing the hype is what could keep the New York Yankees’ young prospect sane amid all the hoopla. People are already expecting him to be a member of the 500 homer, 500 steal club, which is absolutely nuts.

A future Yankees’ star?

Yes, the kid has all the tools to be a star. A compact, powerful swing is the headliner, one that prompted the Yankees to pay a bonus of over $5 million to secure his services as an international free agent.

Dominguez is fast, he has an excellent arm and could play center field. He is built like a running back. And, most importantly, he works hard.

“He’s a rare breed,” said Rodriguez. “When he walks into a room, he’s not your prototypical 6-foot-4 ballplayer. He doesn’t look like Aaron Judge or Giancarlo Stanton. He was a shorter kid who already had a thicker build and just got after it and decided to really build up his body, working on his explosiveness, his core, his legs, his upper body. From an early age, he identified that he needed to bring something else to the table.”

The Forbes article explains the daily journey that Dominguez follows in his quest to be a Yankees’ star someday. “Each week, Dominguez makes a two-hour commute to the Charlie Nova Baseball Academy to work out with trainer Pedro Pichardo. The grind begins Monday and ends Friday—a combination of speed, agility, hitting and fielding drills. Dominguez sleeps at the Dominican facility, his home away from home. Often, it will be 10 p.m., and Dominguez will ask Pichardo to get another late session in before bed.”

The New York Yankees recently named their summer camp roster, composed of a variety of different players, including ones that have experience and others that are young to the system and are trying to earn a spot on the active roster.

A condensed season has expanded the active roster from 26 to 30 players, and the Yankees will start out spring training 2.0 with 59 players available to work with. They will have to work their way down to 30, but the talent they have available will make that difficult.

Players such as Clarke Schmidt, Deivi Garcia, Albert Abreu, and more, all represent young talent that can claw and scratch their way into the conversation.

However, manager Aaron Boone and Co. left off one young slugger who has developed into a sensation in the Yankees farm system.

17-year-old Jasson Dominguez has climbed the prospect rankings over the past year, showing off a complete toolset of traits and incredible talent in the batter’s box. Ultimately, the loss of the minor-league season will hurt the development of the Yankees’ younger players, so their top prospects involved in spring training gives them a chance to work out with the big leaguers and refine their craft.

The New York Yankees are doing what’s best for the team

Brian Cashman, on a conference call Tuesday, stated that the team wasn’t looking to add a ton of prospects to the roster, as they don’t want to be in a position to dip into young players that don’t have the quality to feature at the top level just yet. The next month of training is more about establishing a foundation for a 60-game regular season that is composed of capable players and the top of the crop from the minors.

This ultimately puts Dominguez in the back seat. In a regular season, taking a chance on a young talent like Dominguez would make sense, but when everything is on the line, and the playoffs are essentially won in the first half of this shortened campaign, no risks can be taken.

“There was a lot of speculation of players like a Jasson Dominguez or things of that nature,” Cashman said. “We didn’t do any of that because ultimately, the eye is on the prize, which is, we have a 60-game sprint in a COVID environment to qualify for the playoffs and take a shot at a 2020 world championship title.”

The anticipation of injuries and potential for being exposed to COVID-19 makes this a very tumultuous situation. Cashman mentioned that they have to remain efficient and safe, adding only the best players to the summer camp roster to battle it out.