TBNL: Spencer Jones struggles; Leo De Vries hits for the cycle

“Intriguing talent” is a label that has followed Spencer Jones for years.

A two-way star in high school, Jones was drawing attention from MLB scouts heading into his senior season before fracturing his elbow while throwing a pitch, causing him to miss almost the whole year. Still, the Angels selected the kid from Encinitas (just north of San Diego) in the 31st Round. Jones elected not to sign and enrolled at Vanderbilt, where he’d continue playing both ways.

Jones saw his freshman year at Vandy wiped out after 14 games by the covid pandemic. To make up for the lost time, he joined a team in the California Collegiate Summer League but a subsequent elbow injury resulted in Tommy John surgery. The second injury effectively ended his pitching career.

Jones kept hitting the ball, though. He was limited to DH duties in 2021 while recovering from the TJS, before moving full-time to right field in 2022. Jones batted .370/.460/.644 over 272 PA with 21 doubles, 12 homers, and 14 stolen bases in that final collegiate season. He received All-SEC honors, was invited to the MLB Draft Combine, and ultimately was selected 25th overall by the Yankees that July — signing for slot value, getting a $2.88M bonus.

The start of Jones’s pro career was just as exciting. He hit .344/.425/.538 in his first 106 PA between the Florida Complex League and Class-A Tampa. The next year, he’d slash .267/.336/.444 over 535 PA between High-A Hudson Valley and Double-A Somerset, plus he’d receive an invite to play in the All-Star Futures Game.

Entering 2024, top prospect rankings started to show Jones some love. Baseball America (#46), Baseball Prospectus (#33), and MLB Pipeline (#84) all ranked Jones in the Top 100 before the season.

His stock has fallen significantly since. Jones spent the whole ‘24 season at Double-A, hitting .259/.336/.452 over 544 PA. There were positives in his peripherals: 30 doubles, 17 homers, 25 stolen bases, strong defense and range in the outfield (mostly in center field). There were concerns, too, particularly the 200 strikeouts.

Jones was invited to his second All-Star Futures Game, but ultimately fell off all the Top 100 prospect rankings after the season. (He’s still ranked No. 2 among Yankees prospects by MLB Pipeline, heading into 2025.)

Back at Somerset once again to start 2025, Jones is once again striking out at an alarming rate, with 22 K’s through the first 15 games of the season. He’s batting .236/.354/.582 through 65 PA, with six home runs.

Whether fair or not, the 6’7” lefty-swinging Jones has been compared to the 6’7” right-handed swinging Aaron Judge since the moment he joined the Yankees organization. It’s hard not to when the pair carry such similar physical profiles.

Judge made a quick rise through the Yankees’ minor league system, getting drafted in 2013 and making his MLB debut in August 2016. He didn’t struggle with strikeouts in the minors like Jones has, but also didn’t light Major League Baseball on fire immediately on being called up. Judge homered in his very first career at bat but struggled to a .179/.263/.345 line in his first 95 PA before an oblique strain ended his season early.

Judge’s first full season in 2017 went substantially better, a .284/.422/.627 line (171 OPS+) with an AL-leading 128 runs, 127 walks, and 208 strikeouts while also hitting a MLB rookie-record 52 home runs. He was an All-Star, won a Silver Slugger, was named Rookie of the Year, and finished second in MVP voting.

Nothing suggests that Jones can or will develop into a hitter like Judge. Expecting as much simply wouldn’t be fair. Jones can be a solid contributor to a lineup if he can learn to cut back on the strikeouts and there’s fair reason to picture him stepping into a role in the Yankees lineup alongside Judge in the not-too-distant future.

He’s just not there, yet.

Meanwhile, he’s still likely weeks away from a potential return to the lineup but the Yankees got some positive news on Giancarlo Stanton for the first time since spring training before Tuesday’s game in Cleveland.

Elsewhere, around the sport …

• Cleveland designated Triston McKenzie for assignment on Monday. It might amount to nothing, but I was reminded on Tuesday that he has several connections to the Yankees (he grew up a Jeter-era Yankees fan in Tampa and his mentor when turning pro was CC Sabathia). If New York can add him and somehow get him through waivers to send him down to Scranton for a few weeks, he could be an interesting pickup.

• 18-year-old shortstop Leo De Vries is already at High-A ball for the Padres and had one of the most impressive games of his brief pro career on Tuesday. De Vries went 5-for-5 in the Fort Wayne TinCaps 15-14 win over the Lansing Lugnuts. De Vries hit a solo home run in the first, doubled in the third, hit a two-run homer in the fifth, singled in the sixth, hit a sacrifice fly in the seventh, and tripled in the ninth to complete the cycle. He drove in eight runs on the day.

• Phillies infielder Otto Kemp had a tough day at Triple-A Lehigh Valley. Kemp was hit by a pitch in his at bat in the 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 7th innings on Tuesday. He doubled in the 6th. 31 players have been HBP three times in one game in the major leagues, but no one has ever done it four times.

• Shohei Ohtani’s return to the mound continues to progress closer. Ohtani has been throwing “light bullpens” (no more than 30 pitches) for a few weeks but is expected to throw his first “full-blown” bullpen on Saturday. It’s unclear what “full-blown” means, exactly, but there are no indications that he won’t be back on the mound pitching in games by late-May, as initially expected.