by EJ Fagan
September 2, 2024
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NOTE: The following comes from EJ Fagan's substack page and is shared with permission. This was published a few days ago so the stats don't include the last few games.
Please check out EJ's substack page for more great articles.
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September 1st came. Jasson Dominguez is still a minor leaguer. Alex Verdugo is still the Yankees left fielder.
It’s a terrible decision. I can only explain it by saying that the Yankees would rather lose ballgames than displace a veteran who is going to be off this team in two months.
Dominguez is ready. He was ready for the major leagues a year ago, when the Yankees called him up to hit four home runs in a week. He recovered from his injury, and started rehabbing in the minors. They didn’t send him back to further develop. He was already a major league player. Had Dominguez not tore his UCL, he would have almost certainly been the Opening Day centerfielder in 2024.
Furthermore, the Yankees probably would have called him up in June had he not injured his oblique. He was hitting .389/.405/.639 in two weeks at Triple-A with a 14% strikeout rate - pretty much continuing his incredible second half in 2023. But he missed a month and a half with a pretty serious oblique strain.
Dominguez returned in late July, but it didn’t make sense to call him up a month ago. Dominguez struggled coming back from his oblique injury. He hit .149 from July 26th to August 11th with a 29% strikeout rate. Since then, he’s back to his old ways: .353/.405/.544 with an 18% strikeout rate.
Alex Verdugo, on the other hand, has been terrible for most of the 2024 season. His Statcast page just screams mediocre.
Verdugo has settled into to being a slow slap hitter with a strong outfield arm. He’s not just in a slump. Verdugo is hitting .216/.273/.312 since June 1st, and even worse than that in August. He doesn’t even hit righties well anymore, with a .672 OPS against on the season. He is one of the worst major league left fielders.
Is Dominguez a better hitter than Verdugo? Almost surely. Is he a better fielder? Probably, yes. He’s faster and has a strong arm. He would be an upgrade if he hit .250/.300/.400, but has a lot more upside. This should be an easy call.
I can’t think of a good reason not to bench Verdugo and play Dominguez. Dominguez would not earn an extra year of service time. You could option Trent Grisham, who has pretty much lost his job, to open up a spot. If Dominguez struggles, you can pull Verdugo off the bench.
My only conclusion is that the Yankees care about other things than winning baseball games. Maybe they want to set up Verdugo for free agency. Maybe they hate rookies. Maybe they think that Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton and Austin Wells are too fragile to continue to play well with their friend Alex Verdugo on the bench.
I don’t know, but these are all terrible excuses. Winning teams put the best 9 players on the field every day. The Yankees aren’t a winning team right now.
The YANKEES reason, which I do not agree with, is that there is, as Cashman put it "no lane" for Dominguez in the majors right now. So if called up to the majors Dominguez would be sitting on the bench most of the time, whereas in AAA, he will be playing every day. Cashman is saying that the 3 outfield spots are filled with Soto, Judge, and Verdugo, and he is not even considering taking Verdugo out and replacing Verdugo with Dominguez as a starting outfielder. That is their PUBLIC reason.
Privately, the "not to exceed 130 at-bats" in order to maintain rookie status, and be eligible to win 2025 AL Rookie Of The Year and get that extra Draft…
To answer the question, the Yankees do not make decisions based on baseball principles. They make management decisions.
Because they get a draft choice if he is RoY, of course he will be a top candidate, they will maintain his status.
Dominguez has 35 MLB at bats (37 appearances). That’s not the problem. They can manage those to keep him under 130. It’s the 31 days of current service time. Once he hits 45 active days on the roster he loses status regardless of at bats.
The last day of the season is September 29. Backing up 13 days is the 17th. He should join the team in Seattle to start that series. Unless Verdugo catches fire, would expect him…
Coming from me, the guy that is critical of Cashman for many years (to put it mildly); there shouldn't be a panic here. I don’t get it?
In this rare instance, I have no problem with BC and this decision. He has info we don’t have.
They can call him up anytime they want. So he didn't play against the Cardinals. Is that going to make Soto catch any of those 3 balls hit over his head yesterday? Because that is why they lost Sunday. Not because Verdugo (2-4 Sunday) played.
It didn't have to be a Saturday or bust call up!
When players rehab in the minors, the team and the trainers set up…
Look no further than Cashman..... there is really no excuse and everyone on this post understands this.... 😀
Too many excuses. 99 more at bats and Yanks lose a full year of team control before free agency.