The New York Yankees trusted Trent Grisham and his 129 wRC+ to be a major piece of their 2026 outfield. They liked the stability, the production, the flair, and the 34 homers. They liked that the center field question is no longer a question.
Now comes the harder part: figuring out who stands to his left.
Aaron Judge will handle right field, the perpetual anchor and the reigning AL MVP who has made the corner his home. Grisham takes center. That leaves left field sitting wide open, and the Yankees have spent the early winter treating it like the most important square on the board. They’re considered the favorites to bring back Cody Bellinger, who quietly turned in a 4.9-win season with 29 home runs and a 125 wRC+. He fits them cleanly. He fits almost everyone cleanly, which is exactly the problem. His next contract is going to bite, but someone will pay it. New York has to decide whether it should be them.
Kyle Tucker, the other name they’re hovering around, would be even pricier. He’s younger, steadier, and a true superstar at the plate. You don’t “monitor” Kyle Tucker unless you’re willing to take a swing at the biggest check of the winter. That the Yankees haven’t backed away tells you how badly they want a left fielder of his caliber.
But Brian Cashman didn’t sound like a man banking on a superstar solution when he met with the media on Thursday. He struck a more pragmatic tone, leaving the door open to something far more organic.
A potential youth showdown in left field
Cashman again brought up what he called a “competition” between Jasson Dominguez and Spencer Jones. The phrasing wasn’t accidental. At the very least, he implied, the Yankees are preparing for a scenario in which neither Bellinger nor Tucker lands in the Bronx. And if that happens, left field becomes a developmental battleground between two extremely talented but extremely different young outfielders.
Dominguez has already shown flashes in the majors. His 103 wRC+ this past season looks modest, but considering the start-stop nature of his year and the expectations that follow any top prospect, league-average offense with 10 homers and 23 steals isn’t something to shrug off. The question is whether he can defend the position well enough to buy himself the time he needs to grow into the hitter the Yankees think he can become.
Jones is the wild card. Thirty-five home runs and 29 steals between Double-A and Triple-A jump off the page, and a 153 wRC+ jumps even higher. Then you see the 35.4 percent strikeout rate and feel the floor tremble beneath your feet. The Yankees love the tools. They’re less sure about the timeline. There’s a world where Jones becomes a force at Yankee Stadium. There’s another where major league pitching eats him alive before he adjusts.
Why a platoon doesn’t solve it
A natural thought would be to pair them, but the splits complicate things. Jones hits lefty. Dominguez is a switch-hitter in theory, but in practice he struggles badly against southpaws, posting a 63 wRC+ as a righty in 2025. That’s not a recipe for an efficient timeshare. It’s a recipe for one player winning the job outright and the other fading into part-time limbo.
And that’s where this so-called competition turns tricky. If the Yankees really do go with an internal battle, the loser isn’t getting 250 at-bats to work things out. They’d get scraps. For a team trying to develop two potential outfield building blocks, that’s not ideal.
The likelier outcome
Which brings us back to the free agents. The Yankees might want the internal option to work, but the safer path is still landing Bellinger or Tucker, or at the very least adding a lefty-mashing corner outfielder who gives the roster construction some balance. If they do that, Dominguez and Jones aren’t fighting for survival in left field. They’re fighting for a role somewhere, anywhere, in Aaron Boone’s plans.
The Yankees don’t need left field solved today, but they can’t afford to get it wrong by April. Whether cash or kids take the job will say a lot about how this front office views its next championship window.