Not Sure "top Prospect" And "unable To Field" Connects

It’s wild how a player can be hailed as a top prospect, dominate the headlines, and then take the field looking like he’s never seen a fly ball in his life. Jasson Dominguez, the Yankees’ consensus No. 1 prospect, entered spring training as the favorite for the starting left field spot, but his defense is starting to raise serious questions. How do baseball experts and statisticians even determine what makes a ‘top prospect’ if glaring issues like fielding can slip through the cracks? 

Serious question.

Dominguez’s latest miscue came Thursday against the Philadelphia Phillies. He misplayed a fly ball and then flat-out dropped it, gifting Edmundo Sosa a double. “I got a good route,” Dominguez told reporters, according to the New York Post. “I jumped to catch it. I reached for it. The ball touched my glove, and it came out.”

Sure, it was unrealistic to think Dominguez would show up, smash homers into the stands, and make every catch look easy. He’s only 22, learning a new position, and doing it all for a Yankees team with World Series aspirations. But fans, as always, have no patience. Comments on Reddit paint a bleak picture: “He struggles to read the ball off the bat,” wrote one user. “Hopefully with more time though he can be passable. I wouldn’t count on him ever being a [Gold Glove] or even a plus defender though.” 

But the real question is how did we get here? How did Dominguez rise to the top of prospect rankings if his defense is this much of a liability? Was it just his bat? The Athletic has him as the Yankees’ top prospect and No. 22 on the top 100 list, highlighting his power with an EV50 in Triple-A of 101.6 mph—good enough to rank fourth on the Yankees last year. But when it comes to defense, they just gloss over it in the article, it’s pathetic actually. And that’s from Keith Law by the way. How can that be?

MiLB.com called him a “teen phenom ready to debut with ‘otherworldly’ expectations” back in 2021, and not a word about his defense. Why? How did the Yankees, a team that should be vetting every part of a player’s game, not look deeper into Dominguez’s glove work? It’s disturbing. Is this how they recruit? Do they get lost in the allure of the long ball and let everything else slide?

Dominguez is undoubtedly a special talent, but is he just a special designated hitter? Erik Boland of Newsday offered some balance in 2024 and good for him, quoting a rival scout: “He ran well, and hit the ball out of the park. Did not defend as well as I have seen in the past… but he’s ready.” So, defense was mentioned—kind of. But here we are, watching Dominguez struggle to catch a baseball, and it’s not just a “him” problem. It’s a Yankees problem.

I’ve been critical of the Yankees’ minor league development before, and this is a red flag. You can’t blame Dominguez entirely—you have to look at the system that put him in this spot. He was rushed through the line because he hits dingers, that’s the bottom line.

He’s been marketed as a “phenom” for a while now, but why? Did the hype set him up for failure? Geez. Something to think about.