Jasson Dominguez

The New York Yankees are now in their sixth week of the new season, it seems like the season just started, but the fact is that the season is already 20% completed. Some of the players and pitchers are off to a great start, while others not so much. There is one constant, the minor league season is now in full swing, and with the reduced number of Yankee minor league sites, many young men are champing to get on those teams.

This season minor league Pulaski and Staten Island are gone since MLB has taken over the minor leagues and have accomplished realignment to make the experience better for all. This season fans will see minor league games played in AAA Scranton Wilkes/Barre (Rail Riders), in Somerset, NJ, (AA Patriots), Wappingers, NY, (high A Renegades), Tampa, Florida (low A Tarpons), and the Gulf Coast Rookie League. The Yankees also have two minor league teams in the Dominican Republic.

A short time ago, just before starting the minor league season, the rosters for the teams were released. Interested Yankee fans scoured those lists to see if their favorite prospect made any of the teams. With all the hype the last two years, the name most looked for was Jasson Dominguez; it wasn’t there. Others searched for were Everson Pereria, Kevin Alcantara, Raimfer Salinas, and Alexander Vargas, none to be found.

Many others are not on the lists as well but have less hype involved as they are further off from making the minor league teams. The others that were listed above will most likely, at some point, find themselves one step closer to their dream when they finally get to play professional baseball. No matter how young most of these boys have already worked several years to improve their game for a chance to play with the big boys.

As I said earlier, the Yankees’ number one prospect Jasson Dominguez has generated the most interest since he was signed at just 15. Since then, a multitude of articles has been written about the young sensation, Dominguez. The Yankees paid just over $5 million to sign the player that many call “The Martian” for his other-worldly hitting abilities. Scouts have compared him to a young Mickey Mantle or Mike Trout. To look at the young man, you don’t see an 18-year-old; you see a build and musculature of a decade older player.

The Young Dominguez has played the first two years in the Dominican Republic, but now he is in the United States. However, he did not make any minor league roster. Dominguez profiles as a true five-tool talent – none of his tools are ranked lower than a 55 on the 20-80 scale. There is no question that he will be a future centerfielder for the Yankees. But the Yankees are taking their time with Jasson; they don’t want to rush him along before he is ready. He has played in very few pro games.

Dominguez is now playing in extended spring training at the Yankee’s Tampa facility. Yankee head of player development Eric Schmidt wants to see him play there for four or five weeks. After that, he will most likely be promoted to low A Tampa sometime in June. For those fans that can’t wait to see him play at Yankee Stadium, you will have to wait a bit longer. He isn’t projected to make his major league debut until 2023-24.

Dominguez is not the only centerfield prospect hoping for their chance. Kevin Alcantara and Raimfer Salinas both played in the Gulf Coast League during 2019. Of the two, neither played last season. If they had, they would, at some point, jumped to Rookie advanced or Short-Season A. But those teams no longer exist. Both will probably play in the Gulf Coast League this season. Salinas received the top signing bonus given out by the New York Yankees in 2017-2018. He is 20 years old and will reach the majors at some point.

Alexander Vargas is an up-and-coming New York Yankees shortstop, one of the best they have seen in years. He will likely find himself in Low A this season as well. He is ranked as the Yankee team’s 13th best prospect by MLB.com. He has played in the instructional league in the Dominican Republic and has received solid reviews. He can be an elite defender at short, something the Yankee minor league system has been missing. He improved as his body filled out; the results were shown in spring training.

Everson Pereria is an experienced player who was pushed quickly during his professional debut. At 17-year-old he was held back due to his age. However, of the prospects mentioned, he has the best chance to advance to the High A team Renegades.  He advanced skipping two of the lowest levels of Rookie ball, but his 2019 season was shortened by injury. If he doesn’t make High A, he will surely make Low A Tampa as long as he is healthy. The 20-year-old multi-talented outfielder is the Yankee’s 18th highest-rated prospect.

Several if not all of these players will find themselves in the minor league system with the New York Yankees sometime during the 2021 season. The Yankees have no shortage of up-and-coming players.

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