Yankees' Revival Underway After Fully Embracing Jasson Domínguez and Youth Movement

Just when all seemed to be lost, hope has arrived in The Bronx in the shape of a 5'9", 190-pound slugger from another planet.

His name is Jasson Domínguez, though it's as "The Martian" that he's endearing himself to New York Yankees fans. What his true name is back home on the Red Planet is unknown, but he probably crushes baseballs there, too.

It's the only conclusion to draw from how Domínguez, ranked by B/R's Joel Reuter as MLB's No. 9 prospect, has begun his big league career. The 20-year-old outfielder clubbed three home runs and hit safely in his first five games. Each resulted in Ws for the Yankees before he finally hit a wall with an 0-for-3 in a 10-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers on Thursday.

"He's got a chance to be a great player in this league," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Domínguez on Sunday. "He's off to a pretty good start. With all these guys, I think we're going to see bumps and growing pains along the way. But to come in here against a really good team and a great environment and have them handle themselves the way they have is really, really encouraging."

With Domínguez flanked by fellow prospects Austin Wells and Everson Pereira and another youngster in 23-year-old Oswald Peraza, the Yankees have gone from a low of six games under .500 on Aug. 27 to back even at 70-70. FanGraphs only puts their playoff chances at 0.5 percent but, hey, that's not zero.

Even if the Domínguez bump is too little, too late to salvage this season, it's not too early to look ahead to 2024 with optimistic eyes. After all, it's never a bad omen when such a talented prospect makes such a first impression like this.

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Domínguez Is Already Keeping Special Company

Weird things can happen in sample sizes as small as five games, including unexpected home run binges. Case in point, Liover Peguero hit three homers in a five-game span this year and that didn't make the news. Heck, there's no shame in admitting you don't know who he is.

But when a guy hits three homers in his first five games? That's different. When he does it as a Yankee? Also different. When he does it as a 20-year-old? That's Mickey Mantle stuff:

Domínguez is also the third-youngest player to collect at least 17 total bases in his first five games. The two players below him are Andruw Jones and Manny Machado.

In other words, he's already rubbing shoulders with an inner-circle Hall of Famer, a should-be Hall of Famer and possibly a future Hall of Famer.

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Go Ahead and Buy Into the Hype

Beyond the sample size conundrum, another complication with buying into Domínguez's early success is that it's happening in September.

It's a time of year when rosters are expanded, everyone is tired and many teams have nothing to play for. Hence why September breakouts often go un-built upon. The Yankees know all about it, having gone through it with Greg Bird (2015), Clint Frazier (2020) and Oswaldo Cabrera (2022) in recent years.

But while such humbuggery is easily applied to the 110.2 mph missile Domínguez hit off Tigers right-hander Beau Briske on Wednesday, his other two homers weren't exactly off lightweights gigging for non-contenders.

His second saw him crush a slider from Astros righty Cristian Javier, who posted a 2.54 ERA and spearheaded two no-hitters last year. This was after the switch-hitter collected his first off Justin Verlander, who needs no introduction, on a beautiful opposite-field poke to left field.

Domínguez's early Statcast metrics make for eye-popping reading. He's hit the ball at an average of 90.8 mph, well above the major league average of 89.1 mph. He's also bested the league norm of 39.5 percent by hitting 60 percent of his batted balls over 95 mph.

This tracks with what they say about Domínguez. Scouts generally like his arm strength and, especially for a guy with his build, his speed. Power, though, is supposed to be his carrying tool.

"He still needs a couple of more years to develop in the Minors but could be a .270 hitter with 30 homers per season in his prime," reads the one at MLB.com.

And now more than ever, Domínguez's prime doesn't seem far off.

Then regarded as the No. 2 interplanetary international prospect, Domínguez first signed with the Yankees for $5.1 million in 2019 as a mere 16-year-old. He didn't play minor league ball that year and then the 2020 minor league season was wiped out by the pandemic. There went two years of development, and it too often showed in 2021 and 2022.

More of the same unfolded earlier this year, as his first 304 plate appearances in the minors yielded a 28.0 strikeout percentage and a .197/.345/.357 slash line. But then something clicked, as his next 239 trips to the plate resulted in a 19.7 K% and a .346/.418/.507 line.

If the initial premise was that it was just a matter of time before Domínguez's tools translated to results, it seems now is that time.

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The Yankees' Future Is Undeniably Brighter

It wasn't long ago that coverage of the Yankees was focused not just on what had gone wrong, but how royally screwed they looked for the future.

Not all the points made then have since been rendered moot. This is still a generally old, generally unathletic team. There are still too many bad salaries on the books. And whether Boone and general manager Brian Cashman should stick around remains debatable.

And yet, the sheer 2016 energy of the moment can't be ignored.

That was also a year when the Yankees' playoff hopes went all pear-shaped and they eventually decided to hand the keys to the kids. It worked, and not just because Aaron Judge, Gary Sánchez and Luis Severino helped the team salvage a respectable 28-22 finish. The next year, all three were instrumental in driving the Yankees all the way to Game 7 of the American League Championship Series.

What's happening now isn't a perfect facsimile of what happened in '16, if for no other reason than Wells, Pereira and Peraza have yet to make their mark alongside Domínguez. They're a combined 20-for-119 with no home runs since getting the call.

Still, neither Wells (Yankees' No. 2) nor Pereira (No. 5) have lost their status as top prospects just because they haven't hit the ground running. For his part, it was only last year that Peraza was a top-100 guy.

Not to be overlooked, meanwhile, are that 22-year-old shortstop Anthony Volpe and 27-year-old righty Clarke Schmidt are finishing stronger than they started. Volpe has a .781 OPS since having that chicken parmesan on June 12, while Schmidt has a 3.84 ERA in his last 20 outings.

To be sure, the ongoing youth movement will be no excuse for the Yankees to sit still during the winter. They'll need to try to shed some of their bad salaries, and they'll absolutely need to bring in help for Gerrit Cole in the rotation and further help (ideally of the left-handed variety) for Judge and Giancarlo Stanton in the lineup.

But if there's any difference between the Yankees of today and the Yankees of a few weeks ago, it's that a bright future is no longer strictly hypothetical.

It is, indeed, in front of them. Maybe not right there, but there nonetheless.

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Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.