A pet peeve of mine about the way the Yankees construct a roster is when they hand a job to a top prospect without making him earn it. That is, when the team ignores a position of weakness and relies on a hotshot young prospect seizing the job with relatively little competition. A recent example is Anthony Volpe, who was given a red-carpet ride to the starting shortstop job at some point in 2023 after the Yankees ignored seven different opportunities to sign a seven-figure shortstop in the prior two offseasons (granted, many of those have been failures).
Jasson Domínguez seemed to be handed the starting left field spot in 2025 following the departure of Juan Soto, but the powers that be made a great decision to ride the hot hand in Trent Grisham that April when he got going, pushing the underperforming Domínguez to the bench and since making him prove that he’s worth playing every day, if he’s even a major leaguer at all.
In bringing back Grisham for 2026 on the qualifying offer, the Yankees were ensuring they were avoiding the Volpe mistake with Domínguez or the divisive Spencer Jones, having them both start the season in the minor leagues as depth for when injuries struck. As we now know, they struck in an untenable way, leaving Aaron Judge out the entire summer while having Cody Bellinger and Grisham spend time on the injured list.
This gave both the young outfielders an opportunity, one that they initially seemed to be blowing. Domínguez’s defensive struggles were as ugly as ever, his power had vanished, and the progress he made from the right side was negated by his bat collapsing on his “stronger side.” As such, when Heliot Ramos was acquired at the deadline, it was the Martian on the chopping block.
Jones, on the other hand, looked the part of a guy with big holes in his swing when he was first recalled, but as the team has needed his services more and more as outfielders dropped like flies, he’s gotten better and better. Since his third recall, he genuinely looks like something better than a passable Major League starter, something unimaginable for 2026 entering the season.
This, coupled with the recent struggles of the veteran Grisham, is creating a good problem to have. The Yankees have a rookie who is challenging for a starting role come playoff time, not being penciled in out of necessity. No matter what direction it goes in or how either of them play in October, it’s a tremendous turn of events.
On that note, as Judge’s return grows more and more imminent, who should be getting the lion’s share of reps in center field? Is it as simple as riding the hot hand, or can it be situational? What I’ve seen, based on watching the games and looking at the data, is that it’s a uniquely complex situation with plenty of interesting perspectives. It’s a comparison that stretches the boundaries of ceiling and floor, situational hitting, defense, and some extremely interesting splits.
Let’s start with the incumbent, Grisham, who’s gotten way too much flak for what will go down as ultimately a very successful tenure as a Yankee. We lose sight of it sometimes, but this was a salary dump throw-in in the Juan Soto trade, and he emerged out of nowhere to be an extremely reliable leadoff hitter in 2025, earning the $22 million he got this year. People always seem to overreact to the very end of a player’s tenure, which leaves them with a more negative opinion of said player (see: Aaron Hicks, DJ LeMahieu).
He’s had a season of ebbs and flows, one in which he got off to a truly brutal start to the season with poor batted ball luck. After Judge went down, he took turns with Paul Goldschmidt to carry the offense for about three weeks until a hamstring injury, suffered while running the bases at Rogers Centre, put him on the shelf. When he returned, he started well, but fell into another slump.
His August was a perfect encapsulation of the season as a whole. From August 3rd to 23rd, he mashed seven home runs with 12 extra-base hits and a .967 OPS across 18 games, but has since slipped into a brutal 3-for-34 slump with zero extra-base hits. The former stretch saw him swing much more aggressively early in the count at the expense of his best offensive skill, drawing walks, but he’s seemingly lost that thump in reverting to more of a grinder approach lately.
There’s also the elephant in the room of his defense in center field, which most people didn’t expect would get this bad in 2026. His regression in 2025 was cited, both internally and externally, as a result of the summer hamstring issue he played through. He’s never been a superb athlete, but had managed to be a perennial Gold Glove contender despite it. As we enter the final stretch of 2026, though, he’s clearly been the worst everyday center fielder in baseball defensively, posting a putrid -7 Defensive Runs Saved, -6 Outs Above Average, and -5 Fielding Run Value.
Then, there’s the rookie upstart Jones. A total enigma of a player who could quite possibly be a four-tool guy, but is testing the limits of how good you can be without the biggest floor-raising tool: contact. His initial big-league stints showed potential, but plenty of warts. Since his most recent promotion on July 26th, he’s slashing .250/.315/.500 with seven home runs and, until a golden sombrero on Wednesday night, a noticeably lower strikeout rate.
The tools are there in abundance for the 25-year-old. His 90th percentile speed comes with an ability to play all three outfield positions, while hitting the ball harder than almost everyone. His considerable swing-and-miss risk holds him back, but he’s even been making strides in that regard. His zone contact rate of just 71 percent in Triple-A would’ve matched the worst mark in all of MLB, something extremely concerning when you consider the major stuff difference in the bigs.
Yet, he’s been steadily improving in that department. Since his third promotion, his Z-Contact% sits at a perfectly acceptable 80.8 percent, well above the likes of Munetaka Murakami (who exists as Jones’ best blueprint for success), Cal Raleigh, and Elly De La Cruz. He’s made gradual improvements in his chase rate, a metric that has separated the guys like James Wood and Murakami from the flameouts like Aristides Aquino and Bobby Dalbec.
Jones represents upside, athleticism, and a defensive upgrade. His stats currently trump Grisham’s across the board, so why is this a tough decision? Well, part of it has to do with being a prisoner of the moment and judging one player at their worst and another at their best, but also because there’s more nuance than you might think here, particularly in postseason situations, where little things matter.
Jones’ superior defense can win you a playoff game just based on being able to make a play Grisham can’t, but are the odds that happens as likely as him coming to the plate in what I like to call a “productive out situation?” Runner on second with nobody out and a runner on third with one out. Those are the two situations, with fewer than two outs, where a batter being unable to make contact has drastic effects on the team’s ability to score that inning.
With Jones, he’s had a bevy of those opportunities over the last week, whether in an extra-innings situation or in a critical juncture where runs are at a premium. In all but one of those instances, his at-bat ended with a strikeout or an unproductive out, a risk you would have to acknowledge with him in the lineup, given his weaknesses as a batter.
Grisham’s had less of these opportunities of late, particularly due to usually hitting leadoff as opposed to a prime RBI situation, but it doesn’t take a baseball expert to see why the veteran is a better guy to have up in this spot. Grisham has the best chase and strikeout rates on the team, while making contact in-zone at a 90 percent clip. He also pulls significantly more batted balls, even in his slumps. A bad Grisham at-bat typically ends in a rolled-over ground ball to the right side, while a bad Jones at-bat ends in a whiff.
Speaking of pulling the ball, the difference in batted ball direction by the two lefties might cause such drastic home/road splits. This is truly a sight to behold:
Trent Grisham:
Home: .241/.342/.503, 134 wRC+ (234 PA)
Road: .184/.274/.297, 63 wRC+ (249 PA)
Spencer Jones (since third promotion on 7/26):
Home: .207/.288/.362, 77 wRC+ (66 PA)
Road: .296/.345/.648, 174 wRC+ (58 PA)
You’ve heard of handedness platoons, but what about home/road platoons? Has that ever been done before? Probably not, but I can see how this disparity exists. Grisham, being the pull hitter he is, thrives at Yankee Stadium the same way that Bellinger does, while Jones’ light-tower power can get him positive results at all fields as a guy who doesn’t pull the ball much at all, similar to a James Wood-type of player.
Now, regardless of how you feel about this decision, don’t lose sight of the road we’ve taken to get here. A lot of people who’ve long been fans of Domínguez and Jones detested the decision to bring Grisham back, particularly suggesting a catastrophic regression was likely to happen. While he’s definitely underachieved for his salary this year, he was more than a fine investment in a league that gives Ha-Seong Kim $20 million and Adolis Garcia $10 million. The contract year fallacy doesn’t work when you immediately get put into another contract year.
I do believe that we don’t get this version of Jones without bringing Grisham back. If we assume the same injuries occur and the Yankees decide to spend the money elsewhere, it’d pave the way for Jones and Domínguez to get extended reps early. With how much the former has improved directly after each promotion and demotion, it’s fair to wonder what things would look like if the Yankees had just thrown him into the fire the way they’ve handled the shortstop position over the last four years.
So, whatever direction the Yankees go, this is something they’ll definitely be watching in the next few weeks as they solidify where and when they’re starting the postseason. Both of these guys are pivotal to the story of the 2026 Yankees and deserve opportunities to make an impact in October in some capacity. To what extent, however, is to be determined.
The Los Angeles Sparks are hiring Philadelphia 76ers vice president of player personnel Ariana Andonian as their new general manager, the team announced Friday.
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