The Yankees Could Trade Spencer Jones, The Best Hitter In The Minors

Aaron Judge is a singularity. No one else in MLB can put up numbers comparable to the reigning American League MVP, but there’s someone matching him stat-for-stat in his own organization. New York Yankees prospect Spencer Jones has a Judge-like batting line—and he could be on his way out the door.

Jones began the year with the Double-A Somerset Patriots, where he hit .274/.389/.594 with 16 home runs in 49 games. That earned him a promotion to Triple-A Scranton-Wilkes Barre, where he has taken his game to absurd levels, batting .400/.457/.950 with 13 homers in 19 games.

Across the two highest levels of affiliated ball, he leads all qualified minor leaguers in home runs (29), slugging percentage (.706), and OPS (1.116). His overall batting line this season is .314/.411/.706, which is reminiscent of Judge’s .342/.449/.711 slash line—the components of which all lead MLB.

Jones has drawn comparisons to Judge since he was drafted by the Yankees out of Vanderbilt in 2022. Both are California natives who were selected in the first round out of college. They’re both outfielders who stand 6-foot-7 with immense power and more speed than expected—Jones has 16 stolen bases this year and 96 in four minor-league seasons—even though Jones bats left-handed and Judge hits from the right side.

With Judge on the injured list since July 25 with a bad elbow, it seems like Jones would be a perfect roster replacement since it doesn’t appear he has anything left to prove in the minors. Unfortunately, the two have something else in common—Jones hasn’t played since his three-homer game on July 24 due to back spasms.

A 24-year-old slugging center fielder in Triple-A seems like the kind of prospect the Yankees should make untradeable, but USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reports that they could move him before this week’s trade deadline. The team needs reinforcements, particularly for their pitching staff.

Despite his Judge-like numbers, Jones is one of the most polarizing prospects in baseball. Many evaluators believe he’ll never make enough contact to stick in the big leagues.

In 2024, he set a Yankees organizational record with 200 strikeouts in 124 games and 544 plate appearances while playing in Double-A, which is an astounding 36.8% strikeout rate. To put that in context, only three qualified major leaguers have a strikeout rate higher than 30% this season, and none above Riley Greene’s 32.7%. Again, that was in Double-A, and the pitching only gets tougher to hit at higher levels.

He has made slight improvements this season, but perhaps not enough. He has 94 strikeouts in 302 plate appearances across Double-A and Triple-A, which is a 31.1% strikeout rate. Very few players fan that much in the minors and have success in MLB, as explained by J.J. Cooper of Baseball America.

Another important statistic that portends a player’s success is zone-contact rate, or how often the player makes contact when swinging at pitches in the strike zone. Most hitters have to reach a threshold of around 80% zone-contact in MLB to succeed, with a few rare exceptions.

Jones’ zone-contact rate in Triple-A is only 69.4%. He’s obliterating the ball when he connects, but he’s not putting bat to ball nearly often enough, and most players have even more difficulty making contact when they jump from Triple-A to MLB.

Some analysts think Spencer Jones can overcome his contact woes while others believe they will doom him. With his exceptional numbers in the minors, his trade value has never been higher. We’ll see how much the Yankees believe in him based on whether or not he’s still with the organization in a few days.