ORLANDO, Fla. — No Yankee will be more affected by Cody Bellinger’s decision on where he plays next season than Jasson Dominguez.
Dominguez remains among the franchise’s most touted prospects of the last 25 years, but he will enter spring training with significant playing time far from guaranteed if the Yankees re-sign Bellinger, something that remains their top offseason priority.
Other big-spending teams such as the Dodgers, Mets and Phillies also are interested in signing Bellinger. If the Yankees are outbid on him and whiff on the rest of the outfield market, including Kyle Tucker, Dominguez figures to enter spring training as the frontrunner to be the starting leftfielder.
Top outfield prospect Spencer Jones also would be involved in that competition, one that nonetheless would be Dominguez’s to lose.
All of that assumes Dominguez — or Jones, for that matter — isn’t involved in some kind of megadeal to address one or more of the Yankees’ areas of needs.
“Right now, the reality is JD is a young, talented player that got real experience at the big-league level last year,” manager Aaron Boone said Monday as baseball’s annual winter meetings officially kicked off. “Had a lot of success, had some struggles along the way with it, but I think we all see a really talented player there.”
It is debatable that Dominguez — tagged with the nickname “The Martian” pretty much from the time the Yankees gave him a franchise-record $5.1 million signing bonus at the age of 16 out of the Dominican Republic in July 2019 — had “a lot” of success last season.
But the year wasn’t a disaster by any means, certainly not for a player who is only 22 (he’ll turn 23 on Feb. 7) and still is developing.
The switch-hitting outfielder, who came up through the Yankees’ system primarily as a centerfielder, struggled to adjust to leftfield, a position he was more or less forced to learn on the fly in the major leagues last season.
Dominguez hit .257 with 10 homers, 47 RBIs and a .719 OPS in 123 games. His playing time gradually dried up as the season’s second half progressed, and he received all of one at-bat in the postseason (he hit a pinch-hit double in the ninth inning of the Yankees’ seventh and final postseason game, the ALDS Game 4 loss to the Blue Jays).
The two primary factors in Dominguez losing playing time were his difficulties in leftfield, which made him a defensive liability, and the everyday contributions of the starting outfield composed of Bellinger, Trent Grisham and Aaron Judge.
“The difference of him in February [in spring training] compared to April compared to June, there was really big strides,” Boone said of Dominguez defensively. “But there’s still a ways to go, and just learning the nuances of the position. His athleticism is a real calling card for him as far as his speed and arm strength and things like that. And you hope that eventually wins the day and eventually gets him to the point where, wow, he’s getting really good out there. He’s still got a lot of development to do in that regard.”
General manager Brian Cashman, who admiringly called Dominguez “an anomaly” toward the end of the prospect’s development in the minors, said on Sunday that his current roster is “too lefthanded.”
Dominguez theoretically could help in that regard, but he has been far better batting lefthanded (a .274/.348/.420 slash line last season) compared to his performance as a righty hitter (.204/.279/.290). Of his 10 homers, nine came from the left side.
Cashman said on Sunday that it’s “a fair question” whether Dominguez should continue as a switch hitter in the big leagues, something the outfielder has been doing this offseason while playing winter ball in the Dominican Republic (as well as playing plenty of leftfield).
“I think if spring training started today, he’d be our leftfielder,” Cashman said. “He’d be in the competition . . . Spencer Jones would try to take his shot at the title. But I think it’s easy to think, by default, because Dominguez was here last year and where he’s at in his progression, that he would be the odds-on favorite. But spring training doesn’t start today.”
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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