Yankees' Spencer Jones called up from Scranton as 27th man to significantly less fanfare
Yankees designated hitter Spencer Jones returns to the dugout against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Game 1 of a split doubleheader at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Spencer Jones made his big-league debut to great fanfare on May 8 in Milwaukee, having been called up from the minors when Jasson Dominguez landed on the injured list.
Jones, considered a can’t-miss Yankees prospect, much in the way Dominguez was at one point, was recalled to the majors for Wednesday’s doubleheader against the Pirates to significantly less fanfare.
And this time around, his stay in the big leagues, his third stint this season, was assured to be a brief one.
Jones served as the Yankees “27th man” for the doubleheader, meaning a trip back to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre at day’s end.
It is far too early in Jones’ career, which began accompanied by over-the-top hype pretty much from the time the Yankees took the 6-7, 240-pound outfielder in the first round (25th overall) of the 2022 draft, to make significant projections on it.
Jones, who started game one of Wednesday’s doubleheader as the DH and went 0-for-3 with a walk, is hitting .224 with two homers and a .669 OPS through 31 big-league games. It is a small sample size, but his high strikeout rate remains a concern. He has already struck out 35 times in 76 at-bats, continuing a trend that started in rookie ball.
But what can be said with certainty is that Jones, who could find himself as part of a trade deadline deal as the Yankees try to address multiple needs, is not regarded as he once was, either by the Yankees or by the industry at large.
Jones, of course, is concerned with none of those things. The easy-going but hyper-competitive 25-year-old is, appropriately, focused on his professional baseball journey. One that, he hopes, will eventually result in him sticking in the majors for good.
“My mindset is it’s just the nature of the beast, right?” Jones told Newsday late Wednesday morning of the up-down-up-down nature of his season when it comes to the major leagues. “You obviously want to be up here and stay, but that’s not always the case. I think it’s like character growth more than anything, that’s kind of how I’m dealing with all of this stuff. Where you get your opportunities and then they get taken away and then it’s like, ‘All right, how are you going to come back and do what you need to do?’ That’s how I view it.”
It is a slightly altered take on some of the expressions minor leaguers have lived by for years:
“Be where your feet are.”
“Don’t play GM.”
“If you don’t like it here, play better.”
Shorter still: control what you can control.
Jones has done that for the most part after each of his demotions this season, beginning on Day 1 when Jones spent spring training with the big-league club for a second straight year, then was optioned to Scranton to start the season.
Jones hit .258 with 11 homers and a .958 OPS his first 33 games with Scranton before his first promotion.
After hitting .167 with no homers and a .426 OPS in 10 games with the Yankees from May 8-May 21 – and striking out 12 times in 24 at-bats – Jones was sent down.
There, he hit .306 with two homers and a .919 OPS in 10 games before getting promoted again. Jones was better in his second stint in the majors – from June 5-July 1 – hitting .265 with two homers and an .815 OPS in 20 games before being sent down again (he did struck out 22 times in 49 at-bats).
Unfazed with yet another demotion, Jones hit .310 with one homer and a .963 OPS in eight games before Wednesday’s promotion to the majors.
“I feel like he’s gotten a lot better over the last 12-14 months,” manager Aaron Boone said before Wednesday’s first game. “(He’s had) a couple of stints with us now where feel like he’s held his own and continues to get better and more polished as a hitter.”
Jones used “character growth” in describing how he’s processed, and continues to process, his 2026 season, reflecting the maturity people in the Yankees organization have cited at pretty much every step of his climb through the minor leagues.
“It’s made more of a complete person, more of a complete baseball player, a more complete teammate,” Jones said. “It gives you a better understanding of the game I love. I think that’s the most I can ask out of it.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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