The Tuesday Discussion: Dominguez?

September 3, 2024

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This week we asked our writers to respond to the following:

Should the Yankees have called-up Jasson Dominguez when the rosters expanded?

Here are their replies:

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Ed Botti - At first I was somewhat surprised that he did not get the call. But, in the big picture it really isn’t that significant. They are still allowed to call him up whenever they want. My feeling is they had 1 or more hurdles for him to clear at Scranton. And once he does, he will be brought up.

He is coming off of 2 pretty significant injuries, and has to prove that he is physically ready. Obviously, he hasn’t done so yet.

So I am entrusting that they have a plan, and he just isn’t there yet.

After all, he is not going to change everything on this team when he does arrive. He’s only 1 guy with 35 MLB at bats and 8 hits. I think we all need to relax about Dominguez being promoted. I am more concerned with the lousy defense I have been seeing. That has to end, and should be the real primary focus on this team right now. Not a 21 year old with 8 MLB hits.  I am anxious to see him play every day, and believe in his potential. But he is not a savior.

They have many multi-millionaires that should be leading and delivering this coming month.

He’ll be in the Bronx when he is ready for the Bronx.

The rest of the team needs to look in the mirror, stop reading their press clippings, clean up their act on the field and focus on 1 thing: Winning the division.

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Cary Greene - I think the Yankees did the right thing, for now, in not calling Jasson Dominguez up when rosters expanded.

The reasoning is pretty simple, they want Dominguez to play as much as possible, so getting him much needed reps in Scranton is a better way for him to round back into form than giving him sporadic playing time with the Yankees. It's also not surprising that the Yankees are sticking with Alex Verdugo as their everyday left fielder, even though his production (84 wRC+ on the season) has been consistently bad all year long. 

Impossible as it is for me to make a case for sticking with Verdugo, the Yankees have a borderline dysfunctional GM like Brian Cashman pushing the buttons and he bases his moves upon layers of fantasy baseball type analytics people (like Michael Fishman). Cutting bait with Verdugo would require Cashman to take a hard line stance and doing that really isn't how he operates. Plus, Cashman has stuck with Gleyber Torres (709 OPS since August 2nd), who has become mainly a singles hitter and let's face it, he's as bad with the glove as he is on the bases. Likewise, Cashman has stuck with Verdugo (.567 OPS since August 2nd) as well, so should Yankees fans expect Cashman to make changes and promote unproven rookies with the playoffs only a month away? 

Caleb Durbin could have potentially solved the Yankees leadoff issues, but yet he remains in Triple-A along with Dominguez. Both players are returning from long stints on the DL and they're playing every day in Scranton. Calling them up and not playing them every day doesn't make much sense to Brian Cashman. Perhaps a gutsier GM would call both players up and DFA Verdugo and Torres, but there is no guarantee that strategy would work out. Thus far, Cashman is airing on the side of sticking with experience, which begs the question, is it fair to call up a Dominguez or a Durbin with only a week or two remaining in the season, with the American League East pennant and a first round bye in the playoffs at stake? 

Therefore, the time to call up whomever is identified as a fit going forward needs to happen in the next couple of weeks or likely not at all. Will Cashman cut bait with Verdugo, or Torres, or Rizzo if he slumps? I don't believe he will. 

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Paul Semendinger - By all accounts, it seems that Jasson Dominguez is doing well at Triple-A. Alex Verdugo hasn't hit for months. It seems that Dominguez could be a better option. I would call him up and play him every day for a few weeks. Is he MLB ready? The only way to find out is to play him. It isn't as if Verdugo or Trent Grisham is lighting the world on fire, so why not try to kid who seems ready?

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Ethan Semendinger - I saw that it was being reported by John Heyman yesterday that the Yankees not calling up Jasson Dominguez wasn't about service time manipulation, but rather continuing faith in Verdugo and Grisham from higher-ups. Heyman also indicated the Yankees front office favors veterans, which does not come as a shock to me at all.

It seems like, often, the Yankees decision making is too heavily based on trying to avoid hurting the feelings of veteran players instead of playing with the best possible team. I understand the idea behind this type of decision-making, and it is likely a tactic that the Yankees can use in free agency to make the Bronx a more attractive place to play for aging veteran players. "Come here, and we will play you. You can see our track record of this."

However, this is not the best way to build a team, nor has it shown itself to be a proven strategy to create the best team in the sport. Aging veteran players are best to used as mentors to the young talent for a team and are best to put in platoon or bench roles.

All of this is to say that Jasson Dominguez should've been called up. Alex Verdugo should've been moved into a strict bench role, and Trent Grisham should've been relegated to being a pinch-runner/defensive replacement.

Instead, the Yankees front office is purposefully trotting out a worse team by keeping Dominguez in the minors and starting players like Verdugo and Grisham.