Spencer Jones entered 2025 in a make-it-or-break-it season, as the Yankees saw their 2022 first-round pick set a franchise record for batting strikeouts at the Minor League level.
He became the first and only prospect to strike out 200 times in franchise history, and with 17 home runs, it didn’t come with the kind of power you’d hope for.
Falling out of every top-100 list he was ranked on entering the 2024 campaign, Jones saw his stock completely crumble to the ground, but 2025 has been a completely different story.
After earning a promotion to Triple-A, Jones has crushed with Scranton, launching 10 home runs in 16 games with a 1.422 OPS.
It’s been a dominant campaign for the tall slugging outfielder, and the Yankees will have to decide whether to cash-in on the trade market or hold on and hope that there’s a star to be had with their top-ranked outfield prospect.
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The Numbers Behind Spencer Jones’ Historic Tear
Last season saw Spencer Jones constantly tinker with his batting stance, trying to make adjustments in the midst of a year that seemed to get away from him at times.
The strikeouts were mounting, and while his raw power allowed him to shoot hits through the infield and take advantage of the poor defenses you see at the Minor League level, you wouldn’t find many scouts who believed in his profile.
It’s hard to both project a prospect to strike out over 30% of the time and also project them to be an above-average hitter, and it’s even harder to do that when said hitter doesn’t have elite game power.
Raw power and game power are separate tools in a prospect’s skillset; raw power is graded by looking at exit velocity and batted ball data while game power is graded by a hitter’s SLG% and ISO, metrics that measure power production.
A hitter such as Yandy Diaz will have an elite raw power tool, but due to high groundball rates and low pull flyball rates, he’ll end up with below-average game power.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, Isaac Paredes has below-average raw power, but his insane Pull AIR% allows him to have above-average game power.
When a hitter can combine an elite raw power and game power tool, that’s when you find your Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani, the kinds of batters whom pitchers fear going after since they can take any pitch out of the yard in any direction.
Spencer Jones would spend his offseason trying to improve his ability to lift the ball in the air, allowing him to hit more home runs and turn his elite raw power into elite game power as well.
A massive decrease in groundball rate coupled with a huge uptick in flyball rate would allow for Spencer Jones to turn high exit velocity grounders into bombs, and the results have been titanic.
In 122 games last season, Spencer Jones hit 17 home runs and slugged .444 at the Double-A level, in 65 games this season he’s up to 26 home runs with a .691 SLG%.
Both marks sit atop Minor League leaderboards, but some would argue that his .984 OPS with Somerset was merely a product of a hitter who repeated a year at the same level.
The Yankees moved him up to Triple-A in the hopes of challenging the 24-year-old slugger, as the International League is littered with arms who have MLB experience know how to expose younger unexperienced hitters.
So how did Spencer Jones respond?
Spencer Jones LAUNCHES a 445 foot BOMB.
109.6 MPH. He has 25 home runs in 65 Minor League games this year! pic.twitter.com/BpnLQGEpa1
— Fireside Yankees (@FiresideYankees) July 20, 2025
With 10 home runs in 16 games and an OPS north of 1.400, Spencer Jones has obliterated International League pitching and looks unphased by the higher level of competition.
His ability to do damage on pitches out of the zone makes him a unique threat that can take advantage of pitchers that know he’ll chase, as the pitches that should result in whiffs get tagged for home runs and extra base hits.
With a 205 wRC+, Jones has been by far the best hitter in Minor League Baseball this season, and with this gaudy production, the question now becomes whether the Yankees should keep him or cash-in this trade deadline.
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The Yankees Face An Impossible Dilemma With Spencer Jones
Projections have started to become more optimistic regarding Spencer Jones’ big-league potential, with Steamer giving him a 92 wRC+ and OOPSY a 105 wRC+ as the median projections.
Those aren’t dominant numbers, but as a positive defender in centerfield, that kind of median outcome could result in an everyday big-leaguer.
One of the biggest problems with projections here is that Spencer Jones has a wide range of outcomes; the strikeouts could become such an issue that Jones ends up putting up a negative WAR, but the power brings an insane ceiling.
The comparison I threw around in the winter and that others have brought up during the season has been Matt Wallner, a slugging outfielder for the Twins who has insanely high strikeouts rates as well.
He experienced better contact rates as he continued to play in Triple-A with insane power, and Spencer Jones is starting to see some massive improvements in his contact rate since the promotion:
It’s still not good, but the rapid improvement in Zone Contact% could get him to a point where he can make some contact at the big-league level.
Wallner had over 160 games at Triple-A and hovered around the 78% mark for Z-Contact%, if Jones can get to that mark then I believe his swing will make enough contact to generate tons of power.
He has the pull-side power to hit bombs over the short porch but isn’t obsessed with pulling the ball because he can pop a flyball to left field for a home run as well or even go dead-center.
If the Yankees can trade for the right kind of talent then yes, they should move Spencer Jones because this team can win the World Series in this baseball climate.
That being said, I also think the glove and speed that Jones has allows him to have a high-enough floor to live with the growing pains.
He’ll help you in centerfield, he’ll steal some bases, and when he runs into a fastball that a pitcher leaves over the plate, the scoreboard operator will have some work to do.
Spencer Jones is now hitting .317 with a 1.106 across both AA and AAA this season😳🔥#Yankees pic.twitter.com/nGmQSKqO6F
— Fireside Yankees (@FiresideYankees) July 20, 2025
The tireless improvement and incredibly hard work that Spencer Jones has put in to adapt his swing does affect the grade I’d give his makeup; this is a diligent and disciplined worker with the humility to continue making adjustments.
Maybe New York isn’t the place for a hitter who might strike out 38% of the time, but there’s a good big league outcome to be had and it doesn’t take too many logistical leaps to see it.
The Yankees’ opinion of Jones will ultimately determine his fate, as will the opinions of the other 29 teams in baseball, but I think the outlier skills will at least get him a chance to prove that he can be a middle-of-the-order slugger somewhere.
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