Spencer Jones on the deadline for the New York Center for Yankees

ROCHESTER, NY – While rumors of delay of commerce swirl in the Bronx, the future of the New York Yankees – or at least their next week – takes place 350 miles northwest of Yankee Stadium.

Spencer Jones, the hottest striker of the minor leagues, perfects his job for the Triple-A scrankes Wilkes-Barre railriders while visiting the Rochester Red Wings at the base of the downtown industrial city. Meanwhile, the Big League Club is back home after abandoning a three game set in first place in Toronto Blue Jays three hours through the border.

With the mounting of pressure on the Baseball Chapiteau franchise, Jones (and the rest of the world of baseball) wonders where it will be on August 1.

Most of the years in the Bronx, the noise to call Jones for its major beginnings in leagues would have reached a deafening decibel level well before having made a turn of three circuits in five rounds in Thursday. The 6 -foot 7 inch Toolsy field player, beats 400 with 13 circuits and a 1,403 OPS in 19 games since his promotion to the Railriders on June 27. The combination of the combination of the power of the porch of the Yankee stadium and the Jones monster on the left side is the fabric of the dream creatures of the laundry.

“I have never seen anything like this before,” said Shelley Duncan, manager of Railriders, in ESPN before the 7-1 defeat of his team against the Red Wings on Tuesday of a sequence of 11 consecutive victories. “I have never seen such a talented player before in my life.”

But the recent explosion of Jones has not inspired typical promotion pleas. First of all, because it is not a cup in the construction of the clumsy alignment of the Yankees, which already has too many fields of fields worthy of playing every day. Second, its most blatant defect – a propensity to whistle at an alarming rate – tempered expectations. Instead, his escape, associated with the clear needs of the major league team elsewhere, made Jones a central subject of commercial speculation as July 31 approaches and created a deadline for the Yankees.

In short, did the 24-year-old stellar season, aged 24, made him too precious to exchange?

“It’s very fun at this time of year, just for baseball fans in general, right?” Jones said to ESPN. “I have friends in the whole country who want me to play for their team. But my heart is here with this organization. I have fun being a Yankee so far in my career. And you take everything with a grain of salt. That is part of the season and I am excited to see how things will go ahead.”

The Director General of Yankees, Brian Cashman, did not chop words earlier this month when he described his objectives for the deadline. He wants to acquire the start of pitch to strengthen a rotation that has lost Gerrit Cole and Clarke Schmidt for the season. He wants to upgrade an enclosure of the lifters that lacks robust depth. And he wants an inner field player, preferably someone to replace Oswald Peraza and his 24 WRC + to the third goal.

“We are going to town,” said Cashman.

Until the end of last month, going to town apparently meant Jones – and all the other players in the agricultural system of Yankees not named George Lombard Jr. – Available in the professions.

Rivaux leaders believe that Lombard, a 20-year-old Double-A and Lone Yankee stop on the list of prospects for the 50 best prospects of ESPN MLB, Kiley McDaniel, is essentially untouchable in talks. Otherwise, it was the season open at the right price.

Yankees have several perspectives, other teams covet, mainly launchers. The right-handed starters Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, Bryce Cunningham, Carlos Lagrange, Ben Hess and Cam Schlittler are all very appreciated. Triple-a catckers Jesus Rodriguez and Rafael Flores, who dominated in his third match on Tuesday, are among the others that they could move to plug holes.

From this group, only Schlitler, 24, has reached the majors. Former choice of seventh round, Schlittler launched the 10 fastest throws of a Yankee this season, touching 100 MPH while displaying an MPM of 4.35 during its first two departures. Cashman must decide whether he is part of the immediate future of the team or a sales candidate to improve the chances of the World Series of Yankees.

Cashman must also decide whether the recent Jones game is sufficient to remove it from the table in commercial talks or simply made the ideal time to treat it.

“I could only imagine that there are people who think so,” said Duncan. “But if you want to look at him as a tear, if you mean that it is a tear on which he is, you might think that this is the ideal moment to exchange it. I think the person we see at the moment is who he is.”

If the Yankees keep Jones, they could discuss their surplus of players of the left stroke already in the majors, perhaps creating a place where Jones to fill this season before entering a daily role in 2026.

“My instinct is no, they will not [trade him]”Said a scout of the American League.” They will not need it. “”

There are many reasons to keep it. Jones has a speed that you would not expect from someone in size. He is a fairly good defender who could remain in the central field at the next level. It has an innate ability to hit the baseball bullets hard in the air in all areas which, with its size, have made comparisons with Aaron Judge. He beats .314 with a 1,116 ops in 68 games between Double-A and Triple-A this season. Its 29 circuits have led the minors. And he would arrive in New York with six complete team control of the team.

But with this high -level pop comes a blatant gap that concerns talent assessors: a disturbing trend to turn around on the grounds since the Yankees chose it in the first round of Vanderbilt in 2022.

Jones compiled a withdrawal rate of 33.7% in Double-A last season. This year, this has slightly decreased to 31.7% between Double-A and Triple-A. For the context, this rate would be equal to the fourth worst among the league -qualified strikers with the third goal of Colorado Rockies, Ryan McMahon, a potential commercial objective of Yankees.

The puff rate of 37.4% of Jones in 83 appearances in triple-A plates would be ranked the second higher in the majors among the qualified strikers between Michael Toglia des Rockies, a first goal player of 6-5 with an average throat of .197 and 0.624 ops, and judge, the freentrunner 6-7 al MVP. Its contact rate of 74.8% on land in the striking area would rank the second lower between the knock of San Francisco Giants Rafael Devers and Toglia.

Withdrawal problems have made Jones a polarizing perspective in the industry.

“He has tons of swing and lack,” said a leader of the National League. “When you have important contact problems in minor leagues, it’s very scary. For me, this is not a premium and premium perspective. He is an interesting player with advantages.”

“This is a legitimate perspective,” said an American league leader. “But being 24 in double A with a 33% withdrawal rate is not great.”

An assessor of the talents of the national league: “There is no guarantee when a guy swings himself and lacks as much as him. But the power is special and that the increase is obvious. I therefore think that it is a legitimate perspective of interest, but it is not really a departure from his perspective.”

The profile of Jones made comparisons with the 6-5 Joey Gallo, formerly a leading defensive voltiseur with enormous power, a high withdrawal figure and an average of career strikers.

The judge, a high comparison based on their obvious size and power features, compiled 373 stick withdrawals in 1,510 appearances on plates among minors, rising at a rate of 24.7%, before making his debut in the major league in 2016. He collected 208 sticks in the stick during his first full season in 2017, did not accumulate more than 175 in a season and a season since Professional withdrawal rate of 27.8%.

“Historically, in terms of data, these figures generally send red flags and are not figures that people see a lot of improvements or large improvements,” said Duncan. “But when you dive more deeply and you start trying to understand why the failures are where they are and perhaps the approach, the swing thoughts that he had, you can assemble a puzzle and understand how to eliminate a game. I think some of the adjustments we see are at the moment are promising.”

Jones has implemented considerable swing changes since its end last season with Double-A Somerset. He worked on the elimination of an excess movement to better recognize the land and allow his athletics to flow. It has opened its position since training in the spring, has crouching low and used a high leg kick to activate a more rationalized swing which launches once its foot lands and resembles tight rotation in the center of the judge’s mechanics.

Scraning coach Mike Mergenthaler said he was thinking that Jones had made encouraging improvements to the region, in particular to fight against the heights in the area, but acknowledged that a high SWING-AND-Miss rate will probably remain in Jones’ profile. He pointed out that the average Jones bat speed of Jones of nearly 80 MPH – Statcast considers a swing of 75 MPH or more to be fast – as a feature that will inevitably produce orieurs.

“The simplicity and happiness that accompany this,” said Jones when asked what he had learned this season. “I think that the alignment of the mind and the body in a way that allows you to really, really yourself is something that opened my eyes this year.”

Originally from southern California, Jones heard friends and family everywhere as the trade deadline approaches. The people of his life in Los Angeles and San Diego and Arizona and Texas all want it to play for their favorite teams. The factory of rumors on social networks has been impossible to ignore, the noise strong enough for Duncan to declared that he was planning to address his team about the deadline.

For the moment, Jones is still dreaming of sharing an external field with the judge and calling the house of the Yankee Stadium. Over the next six days, the Yankees will decide whether subtle progress and strong results are real enough to keep it on the way.

“We will worry about this when it happens,” said Jones. “Right now, there is still time to leave, so we will worry about these things as they happen. But I can’t really talk about everything I can’t control at all.”