Will Yankees trade Spencer Jones? Why slugging prospect's rise is a deadline dilemma

ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- While trade deadline rumors swirl in the Bronx, the future of the New York Yankees -- or at least their next week -- is playing out 350 miles northwest of Yankee Stadium.

Spencer Jones, the hottest hitter in the minor leagues, is honing his craft for the Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders as they visit the Rochester Red Wings at the industrial city's downtown ballpark. Meanwhile, the big league club is back home after dropping a three-game set to the first-place Toronto Blue Jays three hours across the border.

With the pressure mounting on baseball's marquee franchise, Jones (and the rest of the baseball world) wonders where he'll be on Aug. 1.

Most years in the Bronx, the noise to call up Jones for his major league debut would have reached a deafening decibel level well before he clubbed three home runs in five innings in Thursday's matinee. The 6-foot-7 toolsy center fielder is batting .400 with 13 home runs and a 1.403 OPS in 19 games since his promotion to the RailRiders on June 27. The combination of Yankee Stadium's short porch and Jones' monster power from the left side is the stuff of Bleacher Creature dreams.

"I've never seen anything like it before," RailRiders manager Shelley Duncan told ESPN before his team's 7-1 loss to the Red Wings on Tuesday snapped an 11-game winning streak. "I've never seen a player this talented before in my life."

But Jones' recent outburst hasn't inspired the typical pleas for promotion. First, because he isn't a fit in the Yankees' clunky roster construction, which already has too many outfielders worthy of playing every day. Second, his most glaring flaw -- a propensity to whiff at an alarming rate -- has tempered expectations. Instead, his breakout, coupled with the major league team's clear needs elsewhere, has rendered Jones a central subject of trade speculation as July 31 approaches and created a deadline dilemma for the Yankees.

In short, has the 24-year-old Jones' stellar season made him too valuable to trade?

"It's a lot of fun this time of year, just for baseball fans in general, right?" Jones told ESPN. "I have friends all over the country that are wanting me to go and play for their team. But my heart's here with this organization. I've been having a lot of fun being a Yankee so far in my career. And you take everything with a grain of salt. It's part of it, part of the season and I'm excited to see how things go moving forward."

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman did not mince words earlier this month when he outlined his goals for the deadline. He wants to acquire starting pitching to bolster a rotation that lost Gerrit Cole and Clarke Schmidt for the season. He wants to upgrade a bullpen that lacks sturdy depth. And he wants an infielder, preferably someone to replace Oswald Peraza and his 24 wRC+ at third base.

"We're going to town," Cashman said.

Until late last month, going to town seemingly meant making Jones -- and every other player in the Yankees' farm system not named George Lombard Jr. -- available in trades.

Rival executives believe Lombard, a 20-year-old shortstop in Double-A and the lone Yankee on ESPN MLB insider Kiley McDaniel's most recent top 50 prospects list, is essentially untouchable in talks. Otherwise, it was open season at the right price.

The Yankees have several prospects other teams covet, predominantly pitchers. Right-handed starters Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, Bryce Cunningham, Carlos Lagrange, Ben Hess and Cam Schlittler are all highly regarded. Triple-A catchers Jesus Rodriguez and Rafael Flores, who homered in his third game at the level on Tuesday, are among the others they could move to plug holes.

Of that group, only the 24-year-old Schlittler has reached the majors. A former seventh-round pick, Schlittler has thrown the 10 fastest pitches by a Yankee this season, touching 100 mph while posting a 4.35 ERA in his first two starts. Cashman must decide if he's part of the team's immediate future or a trade candidate to improve the Yankees' 2025 World Series chances.

Cashman must also decide if Jones' recent play is enough to take him off the table in trade talks or has simply made it the perfect moment to deal him.

"I could only imagine that there's people that are thinking that," Duncan said. "But if you want to look at it like a tear, if you want to say this is a tear that he's on, you might think it's a great time to trade him. I think the person we're seeing right now is who he is."

If the Yankees keep Jones, they could trade from their surplus of left-handed-hitting position players already in the majors, perhaps creating a spot for Jones to fill this season before stepping into an everyday role in 2026.

"My instinct is, no, they won't [trade him]," an American League scout said. "They won't need to."

There are plenty of reasons to keep him. Jones boasts speed you wouldn't expect from someone his size. He's a good enough defender who could remain in center field at the next level. He possesses an innate ability to hit baseballs hard in the air to all fields that, along with his size, has drawn comparisons to Aaron Judge. He's batting .314 with a 1.116 OPS in 68 games between Double-A and Triple-A this season. His 29 home runs lead the minors. And he would arrive in New York with six full seasons of team control.

But with that top-tier pop comes a glaring shortcoming that concerns talent evaluators: An unsettling tendency to whiff on pitches since before the Yankees selected him in the first round out of Vanderbilt in 2022.

Jones compiled a 33.7% strikeout rate in Double-A last season. This year, it's decreased slightly to 31.7% between Double-A and Triple-A. For context, that rate would be tied for fourth worst among qualified major -league hitters with Colorado Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon, a potential Yankees trade target.

Jones' 37.4% whiff rate in 83 Triple-A plate appearances would rank second-highest in the majors among qualified hitters between the Rockies' Michael Toglia, a 6-5 first baseman with a .197 batting average and .624 OPS, and Judge, the 6-7 AL MVP frontrunner. His 74.8% contact rate on pitches in the strike zone would rank second-lowest between San Francisco Giants slugger Rafael Devers and Toglia.

The strikeout concerns have made Jones a polarizing prospect in the industry.

"He has tons of swing and miss," a National League executive said. "When you have significant contact issues in the minor leagues, that's very scary. To me, he's not a premium, premium prospect. He's an interesting player with some upside."

"He's a legit prospect," an American League executive argued. "But being 24 in Double-A with a 33% strikeout rate isn't great."

Said a National League talent evaluator: "There's no guarantee when a guy swings and misses as much as he does. But the power is special and the upside is obvious. So I think he's a legitimate prospect of interest, but that's not really a departure from his prospect standing."

Jones' profile has drawn comparisons to the 6-5 Joey Gallo, once a premier defensive outfielder with huge power, high strikeout numbers, and a .194 career batting average who made two All-Star teams over 10 major league seasons.

Judge, a lofty comparison based on their obvious size and power traits, compiled 373 strikeouts in 1,510 plate appearances in the minors, amounting to a 24.7% rate, before making his major league debut in 2016. He tallied 208 strikeouts in his first full season in 2017, hasn't accumulated more than 175 in a season since then and has a 27.8% career strikeout rate.

"Historically, data-wise, those numbers usually send red flags out and are not numbers that people see a lot of improvement on or big improvements on," Duncan said. "But when you dive deeper and you start trying to figure out why the misses are where they are and maybe the approach, swing thoughts he had, you can put together a puzzle and figure out how to eliminate some of it. I think that some of the adjustments that we're seeing happen right now are promising."

Jones has implemented considerable swing changes since ending last season with Double-A Somerset. He's worked on removing excess movement to better recognize pitches and allow his athleticism to flow. He's opened his stance since spring training, crouching low and using a high leg kick to activate a more streamlined swing that launches once his foot lands and resembles the tight rotation central to Judge's mechanics.

Scranton hitting coach Mike Mergenthaler said he believes Jones has made encouraging improvements in the area, particularly in combating pitches high in the zone, but acknowledged a high swing-and-miss rate will probably remain in Jones' profile. He pointed to Jones' elite average bat speed of close to 80 mph -- Statcast considers a swing 75 mph or above to be fast -- as a feature that will inevitably produce whiffs.

"Simplicity and the bliss that comes with that," Jones said when asked what he has learned this season. "I think just aligning the mind and body in a way that allows you to really, truly be yourself is something that's opened my eyes this year."

A Southern California native, Jones has heard from friends and family everywhere as the trade deadline approaches. People in his life in Los Angeles and San Diego and Arizona and Texas all want him to play for their favorite teams. The social media rumor mill has been impossible to ignore, the noise loud enough that Duncan said he planned on addressing his team about the deadline.

For now, Jones still dreams of sharing an outfield with Judge and calling Yankee Stadium home. Over the next six days, the Yankees will decide if the subtle advancements and loud results are real enough to keep him on a path there.

"We'll worry about that when that happens," Jones said. "Right now, there's still time to go, so we'll worry about those things as they happen. But I can't really speak on anything I can't control at all."