Spencer Jones is one of the most interesting prospects to cover in the Yankees‘ organization, possessing both career-stalling flaws and once-in-a-generation physical traits. He’s a 6’6 outfielder who can run at speeds only rivaled by the game’s very best baserunners, giving him the benefit of both a great frame for building power while having the physical tools to provide value as a runner and fielder. Jones is a premium defensive outfielder manning a position as tough as centerfield.
The traits here are good enough to win an MVP, and yet not everyone is sure that he’ll make it past Triple-A. Jones fell off of Baseball America’s and Baseball Prospectus’ top-100 lists despite being a data darling in the draft following his 2024 season, but with an OPS north of 1.000 right now, can he earn some of that hype back?
Do the Yankees Have a Model-Breaker in Spencer Jones?
Spencer Jones is off to a great start with the Somerset Patriots, as he’s blasted an Eastern League-best six home runs with a 186 wRC+, which ranks in the top five for qualified hitters. He’s lifting the ball more in the air and striking out at a lower rate than last season, but there are still questions about whether it would translate to the Major Leagues. The contact rates are still bottom-of-the-barrel, but if he were to make the Major Leagues, he wouldn’t be the first successful big league hitter to have poor contact rates in the Minor Leagues.
I’ve compared Spencer Jones to Matt Wallner multiple times throughout the offseason, as both were hulking outfield bats who needed more time in the Minor Leagues to find their footing. Injuries have limited Wallner’s effectiveness, but he has a 144 wRC+ and .847 OPS through his first 187 MLB games, which is superstar-level production at the plate. Both have serious strikeout issues. Wallner is very comparable to Joey Gallo when you look at just how frequently he swings and misses, and those issues were apparent through his final full year in the Minor Leagues.
They have similarly poor contact rates, and unlike most prospects, Spencer Jones can actually match or exceed the power output of Matt Wallner. The biggest reason that the Yankees’ first-round pick is having success has to do with his improvement in power output, continuing to hit the ball hard while also doing tons of damage on contact, which has yielded more extra-base hits and home runs. Jones has a 37.1% GB% compared to the 42.3% mark we saw last season, and by lifting the ball in the air more, he’s getting more opportunities to leave the yard.
What ultimately separated Matt Wallner or even Joey Gallo from the Spencer Jones we saw last season was how much better those two were at hitting home runs. In his first two full seasons with the Yankees’ organization, Jones has yet to even hit 20 home runs in a single season, while Wallner crushed 27 in 128 MiLB games in 2022, and Gallo hit 25 in 102 games during his final season as a prospect in 2016. If he plays 120 games and hits home runs at the current pace he’s at, Spencer Jones would have 45 home runs by season’s end, a massive improvement over last season’s pace.
It took him 46 games to hit his sixth home run of the 2024 season, and he had just one multi-homer game all year while already having two of them in 2025. This is a different version of Spencer Jones we’re seeing, and his batting stance has continued to evolve as he’s tried to keep figuring things out.
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Our Yankees’ prospect of the day is Spencer Jones, who reached base in all four of his plate appearances and made a REMARKABLE catch for the @SOMPatriots!
2-2 | 2 BB | 2B | 1 R | Season wRC+: 186 pic.twitter.com/5VOxwyW57g
— Fireside Yankees (@FiresideYankees) April 23, 2025
Spencer Jones was an incredibly raw prospect when the Yankees selected him in the first round of the 2022 MLB Draft, having only one full season in college exclusively as a position player. He didn’t get much summer league action and missed a lot of time in his early days of college rehabbing from an elbow injury he sustained while pitching. The Yankees have had to oversee most of his development at the plate, as Jones was considered an excellent pitcher as well when he was drafted out of high school by the Angels earlier in his career.
There also isn’t as much pressure on his bat for him to be a successful or productive MLB regular, as his defense in centerfield is truly elite. He’s an excellent baserunner as well, and that should allow him to contribute value and make winning plays even if the offense is below-average. Where things get interesting is if Spencer Jones can follow the mold of those aforementioned strikeout-heavy sluggers, posting an OPS north of .800 while whiffing at league-high rates. It doesn’t feel like Jones is someone who can come up to the big leagues today, but a promotion to Triple-A could be soon.
He is Rule 5 eligible at the end of the 2025 season, so the Yankees will have to make a decision about whether they’ll put him on their 40-man roster or leave him unprotected for another team to pick up in the Rule 5 Draft. This could also put pressure on the front office to trade Jones and get value back, but his strong start helps them regardless of whether they believe or don’t believe in Spencer Jones. He’s got the power, speed, and defense to become a big leaguer, and if he keeps hitting like this, he might just push the bounds of how much success one can have while striking out 35% of the time.