The Yankees Should Call Up Spencer Jones and Trade Trent Grisham

The Yankees Should Call Up Spencer Jones and Trade Trent Grisham

By E.J. Fagan

July 25, 2025

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NOTE: The following comes from EJ Fagan's substack page and is shared with permission.

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Spencer Jones hit three more home runs yesterday.

He’s up to a Judgian .314/.411/.706 batting line on the season, including a 1.400 OPS and 13 home runs in 19 games at Triple-A.

Consensus is slow to adjust. Before this season, Jones had posted solid numbers with a horrific strikeout rate. The consensus opinion was basically, “those solid numbers Double-A results aren’t sustainable with a 36% strikeout rate in the majors.” Jones was, appropriately, downgraded as a prospect.

But things have changed. He’s now (a) hovering around a much more reasonable 31% (and dropping) strikeout rate and (b) hitting better than any prospect that I can remember. I think prospect experts are a bit slow to change their preexisting opinions on Jones.

Baseball America just published an article saying that Jones is baseball’s most perplexing prospect. They said in a Bluesky post that he would probably be a top 100 prospect if they were reranking today. But they point out in the article that most prospects with a 30%+ strikeout rate failed to do much in the majors. Similarly, MLB.com just boosted Spencer Jones… to 4th in the Yankee system. Hence, perplexing.

But we’re overthinking things a bit here.

Let me interrogate (b) for a second. Jones has 255 plate appearances in 2025. After today, his wRC+ will be around 205. How does that compare historically?

Here are the best performances by a minor league batter in Double-A or higher since 2006 in 250 or more PAs:

• Kris Bryant hit .325/.438/.661 in 2014 (189 wRC+)

• Vlad Guerrero Jr. hit 381/.437/.636 in 2018 (191 wRC+)

• Brandon Belt hit .352/.455/.620 in 2010 (185 wRC+)

• Kevin Kouzmanoff hit .379/.409/.647 in 2006 (202 wRC+)

• Kristian Campbell hit .330/.439/.558 in 2024 (178 wRC+)

• Matt Wieters hit .355/.454/.600 in 2008 (180 wRC+)

  
  

That’s about it. Juan Soto had a crazy minor league season but forced his way to the majors after just a few months. A few guys went off in Low-A.

I think we can confidently say: Spencer Jones is currently having the best season ever by a minor league hitter. Maybe he comes back down to earth a bit by the end of the year, but if anything he’s still blasting off into space. The secondary booster is engaged. He’s going to the moon.

We also have some confirmation that Jones has made a mechanical change. I only recently caught this interview that Jones did on the Gotham Sports app.* Jones decided to simplify his swing and “just stop moving” before the pitch. He says the change has allowed him to keep his eyes focused on the ball, make pitchers seem slower, and shorten his swing. It’s unclear when he made the change, but it was some time during the 2025 season.

*I encourage everyone to watch this interview. I've always been impressed with Jones as a person. He’s clearly mature, smart and level-headed. More than major league makeup.

There are lots of caveats here. Every player I listed above other than Kouzmanoff was younger than Jones, although a few were 22-23. Every player had a lot lower strikeout rate. Most had big breakout seasons before their best ever season. All were in the majors pretty soon after, and only Kouzmanoff (and maybe Campbell) weren’t immediate successes.

But we’re in the “I don’t care about the caveats” range. If Jones were hitting like .225/.370/.550 (where he was when he went down with an injury in early May), then we should have the “those solid numbers won’t translate to the majors with that swing” conversation. That batting line was impressive, but well within normal prospect ranges. We’re now in pure outlier world.

Most players can’t hit enough to succeed in the majors with a 31% strikeout rate. But most players—no other players ever—can post a 205 wRC+ in the high minors. Jones has a career minor league BABIP north of .360 (which does not include home runs). The major league average is .291. He could still post a respectable batting average with a .320+ BABIP (Judge is a career. 351 BABIP).

Even Oneil Cruz is hitting .220 with a 32% strikeout rate with a league average BABIP. It helps to be fast, but Jones is no slouch himself.

Will his strikeout rate balloon once he sees major league pitching? Maybe it will. He struck out a lot more when he jumped from the low minors to Double-A. But he’s on a downward trajectory since making his swing adjustment, including a 26% rate at Triple-A.

There is no way to answer the hypothetical without calling him up and seeing what he can do the in the major leagues. He is the best hitter not in the major leagues, full stop. He would probably earn a promotion on 29 teams right now, but the Yankees have are the one team with absolutely no place to play him. There’s a pretty good chance that Jones continues his current hot streak in the major leagues. Imagine having 2016 Gary Sanchez while trying to win the AL East?

But you have to resolve the logjam. I’m a little shocked by how well Aaron Boone has been managing everyone’s playing time so far, but one more player would make the job impossible.

Someone would need to go, and that someone is almost certainly Trent Grisham. He’s having a great year, but the Yankees can mostly replace him with Jasson Dominguez even without Jones. Grisham should be able to command a nice price at the deadline.

Maybe the Phillies, who are running three sub-replacement level outfielders, would shake loose a starting pitcher. Or you could take a flyer on one of the Mets underperforming infielders. Or you could take one of the Brewers stack of late inning relief pitchers with control (or take Caleb Durbin back). Even without Jones, you might improve the team because your opportunity cost is low. It makes sense to even mildly “lose” a Trent Grisham trade in pure WAR math.

I think you would wait a month to pull the trigger in an ideal world. Jones still has less than a month at Triple-A under his belt. But we don’t live in an ideal world. Brian Cashman has a week. Maybe we’ll see Jones join the team when they travel down to Miami on August 1st.