00:00Joel Sherman for Three Things. It is Tuesday morning. I'm at Steinbrenner Field.
00:06The Yankees have a game in Port Charlotte today against the Rays.
00:09It's early morning. They're just gathering. It's eight days till opening day.
00:14Why don't we do the tale of three outfielders?
00:16Because I think it's one of the interesting items that will carry over into the season for the Yankees in
00:222026.
00:23Why don't we start with one of those outfielders?
00:26And it's Trent Grisham. And just if you're watching this, you know I tend not to read mentions on social
00:33media or go searching for bad news.
00:38I think I have a thick spine, but there's just so much anybody could take.
00:42But enough gets to me. I know that Trent Grisham is the bane of a lot of Yankee fans who
00:49are furious he's back.
00:51I get it. I don't love this player.
00:54I try not to be body language military, but I obviously I don't love the body language on Grisham.
01:03But I'll say this is you have to think of Trent Grisham when the Yankees are making a decision about
01:09Trent Grisham,
01:10which is they had till five days after the World Series.
01:12He's coming off a 34 homer season.
01:15They don't know if they're getting Cody Bellinger back at that point.
01:20He's a Scott Boris client. They know that's going to take far into the offseason.
01:25They're not sure exactly what they have in Jason Dominguez and Spencer Jones.
01:31If Trent Grisham, a left-hand hitting center fielder, had hit 34 homers for a different team and been offered
01:37to the Yankees on a one-year,
01:39$22 million contract for nothing in return except for to take the contract, the Yankees probably would have traded for
01:44that.
01:45Instead, they just offered up the qualifying offer, Trent Grisham accepted, and they brought him back.
01:53If they knew everything that would transpire afterwards, would they have done that?
01:58I'm not sure.
01:59But they can't have known that, and a big market team is going to do a one-year, $22 million
02:05contract.
02:06The alternative is, what, two at 28, three at 39, three at 40, something like that.
02:11You'd rather be one and done with Grisham and find out if last year is real or not.
02:17You know, the Yankees, and look, he's had a bad spring training.
02:21I tend to try to ignore spring training numbers.
02:24Aaron Judge was about the worst hitter on the Yankees last spring training and won his third MVP, his second
02:29in a row.
02:30Obviously, there's a big difference between Judge's track record and Grisham's track record.
02:34But I think what one and the other, what spring training numbers are and what reality are, is two different
02:41things.
02:42Is Trent Grisham midway between what he was last offseason and what he was last season and what he was
02:51before?
02:51Maybe that would still be a worthwhile player for the Yankees, especially if his legs are in good shape and
02:56he's able to defend a little bit out there better this year than he has in the, you know, than
03:02he did last year.
03:03So that's Grisham.
03:05Number two, why don't we talk about Jason Dominguez?
03:09Jason Dominguez needed to come here.
03:11He is a guy where results in spring training were going to matter.
03:15And he's had a good spring training and he's still almost certainly not going to make this team because what
03:20the Yankees needed in a fourth outfield type was a right-hand hitter.
03:24They signed Randall Grichuk to a minor league contract.
03:27I assume they're going to convert that to a major league deal and put him on the roster to begin
03:31the season.
03:31And that he'll be the fourth outfielder because he has a track record of hitting lefty pitching really well and
03:38being able to play off the bench, which the Yankees can't know about Dominguez.
03:42Dominguez came to this camp.
03:44He has hit.
03:45He has run.
03:46He has fielded the ball better.
03:49He has gone and got it better.
03:51The Yankees work with him in the offseason and here about reading the ball off the bat and not making
03:57a false step.
03:57They felt that one of Dominguez's problems was he was moving before he absolutely knew where the ball was going
04:03and that his closing speed was his gift and that they should use that gift to go get it.
04:10And he has gone and got it.
04:11It's been good.
04:12The problem for Dominguez on defense continues to be he's not a great decision maker with the ball in his
04:17hands and he could get fooled hitters.
04:21He could get lulled when like a ground ball single that he's not charging and making a quick decision to
04:26get the ball back in.
04:27Aggressive runners are going to take that extra base on him.
04:29It's the next thing he has to close the gap on.
04:33And I assume he's going to do that at AAA.
04:36He'll also get to keep working on his right hand stroke, which is going to be important.
04:40But I believe that there's a good major league player in Jason Dominguez, a perhaps 20 homer, 20 steal, major
04:47league average defensively left fielder.
04:49That's an above average player.
04:51The Yankees will have injuries during the season.
04:54He will get plate appearances.
04:55He'll get a chance to show he can do that in the major leagues.
04:58If not, he'll get used as a trade chip come July.
05:02Or remember, Grisham's on a one-year contract.
05:06Dominguez is still only 23.
05:08So he's going to get opportunities here or someplace else.
05:12For him, without an injury in this last week, it's going to be Scranton-Wilkes-Barre to begin the season.
05:18Number three outfielder for the Yankees is the one I find most fascinating, and that's Spencer Jones.
05:23Because you could convince me he's a variety of things.
05:27He is anywhere from sub-Joey Gallo to 80% of Aaron Judge.
05:33And obviously 80% of Aaron Judge is a very, very good major league player, and that would be a
05:40good major league career.
05:41And sub-Joey Gallo, especially the back end of Joey Gallo, is going to wash out.
05:47I talked to lots of people about Spencer Jones.
05:49I wrote about Spencer Jones for the Post over the weekend.
05:54He is a guy, he came, another guy, he came to this camp and he performed.
06:00He's hit four homers here.
06:02Again, hold your horses on spring numbers.
06:04Remember Ben Gamble, played for the Mets and Yankees?
06:06He's got four homers this spring.
06:07Remember Brandon Davis, who was in the Yankee camp last year, won some big prospect with the Cubs, hasn't been
06:14able to stick anyplace?
06:15He's got four homers this spring.
06:17Brandon Lockridge, again, from the Yankee organization, a defense first player and a runner, he's got four homers.
06:23Spring training, you get fooled.
06:26But he came here, he put a calling card down, he made better contact with the ball.
06:32He struck out over 36% of the time at AAA last year once he got promoted, and over 35
06:37% between double and AAA.
06:40What does that translate to in the major leagues?
06:42What's the swing and miss in the major leagues?
06:45I talked to Giancarlo Stanton, and Stanton talked about, used a word I really liked.
06:51He said, strikeouts are circumstantial.
06:54So Giancarlo Stanton's up with two outs and nobody on.
06:58He's going for a home run, right?
07:00Like, the chances of Giancarlo Stanton hitting a single and scoring with his speed and two outs is not great.
07:08So he's going to try to park a ball there.
07:10And so his strikeout rates in those situations are going to go up.
07:13Runner on third, less than two outs, that guy's got to score.
07:16If you noticed last year, Stanton, who struck at about 34% of the time, struck at about 28%
07:22of the time with runners in scoring position, hit over 300, had over 1,000 OPS.
07:27So some of this is, in Stanton's word, a word I like, is circumstantial.
07:31When are you striking out?
07:33Who are you striking out against?
07:34What's the moment?
07:35So I think that Spencer Jones has to show that he can hit major league pitching in general and, in
07:42specific, in big moments, be able to contact the ball.
07:46There is obviously great raw power there.
07:49And can he get to 35-plus homers?
07:52Can he get to 20-plus steals?
07:54He is a speedy guy.
07:56He's kind of slightly around average as a center fielder.
08:00But the feeling among the scouts who cover him is it will go to above average as a corner player
08:04in left or right field.
08:06Those are not right open right this second for the Yankees.
08:10But an above average corner outfielder defensively with 35 homer power and 20 stolen base, that's a good player up
08:18to a certain strikeout range.
08:20You know, you could tolerate it at 30%, 32%.
08:23It's a lot.
08:25It's ugly.
08:26It's not the game you want to watch.
08:27But in exchange for something else, Stanton struck out 34% of the time last year.
08:33He also homered at the same rate he homered in 2017 when he hit 59.
08:38So the exchange rate for Stanton is a worthwhile exchange rate.
08:43Can Spencer Jones get to an acceptable exchange rate that he's doing this other stuff and the strikeout rate isn't
08:4936%, 40% in the major leagues?
08:53We're not going to know that.
08:55And I'm not sure that the Yankeesâlook, the Yankees might run this into the ground like, say, Clint Frazier, where
09:02by the time they know that he can't play, he's worth nothing on the marketplace.
09:08But right now, if you're the Yankees and you're not fully comfortable what you have, should you really trade Spencer
09:15Jones for something you could buy in the marketplace or trade lesser guys?
09:19Spencer Jones has an upside that's still fascinating that I think before you move himâI think he's the kind of
09:28guyâI hate to say this.
09:29You'd rather run into the ground and know for sure that it's not than trade without fully knowing what it
09:36is and it turns into something big someplace else.
09:39And there's still that possibility in his skill set.
09:44Everyone talks about what a hard worker he is and everyone talks about how humble he is and willing to
09:48work and learn.
09:50There is still a gap here.
09:52He turns 25 in May.
09:54Judge didn't come up until 25.
09:56Another big guy.
09:58Is he going to be judge?
09:59No, nobody in history.
10:00Judge is one of the greatest players ever.
10:02That's not likely to happen.
10:04But there could be a really, really good baseball player inside Spencer Jones.
10:10AAA is going to be fascinating with Dominguez and Jones there.
10:14And the Major League is going to be fascinating to see who Trent Grisham is in 2026.
10:18Is it 2025 or a Booby Prize?
10:26You
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