Yankees Should Practice Patience with Young Slugger

Now that Dominguez is down in Tampa with the rest of the team, his status is uncertain. According to Brian Cashman, he thinks the best course of action is for Dominguez to find everyday at-bats. That feels like a return to Scranton.

"If everything stays the same, we'll be forced to determine what's our best course of action to help this team be impactful," Cashman said at camp, according to Greg Joyce of the New York Post. "I would concede it's in his best interest to be getting everyday reps."

Cashman then played up his tools as a player.

"He's one of our best runners," Cashman continued. "So, having him as a choice for our manager to use coming off the bench at times as a pinch-runner to steal a bag or first to third, second to home, what have you, definitely improves our chances of success because of his pure athleticism."

Dominguez's Future

Dominguez being a pinch runner isn't what made him one of the most tantalizing prospects of his class when he signed out of the Dominican Republic as a teenager. It was his ability to hit. The comparisons for him were Hall of Famers.

That's a lot of pressure for a young player to live up to, especially one signing a big deal with a franchise that has the history that the Yankees do.

In the case of Dominguez, it's best not to give him any Mickey Mantle comps, but rather, allow him to develop on his own. For one, he's still only 23, and if he starts the season at AAA, it isn't the worst thing to happen to him.

Making the Opening Day roster came to an end when the Yankees finally landed Cody Bellinger long-term, and then followed it up by bringing in Paul Goldschmidt. Of course, starting on Opening Day, for all its pomp and circumstance, doesn't decide a full season — especially for this team.

Back in 2018, the Yankees traded for Brandon Drury. Drury went down immediately, and that made way for top prospect Miguel Andujar, who everybody thought should have made the team anyway. Dominguez has more major league experience than Andujar, but the sentiment remains the same. You just never know what happens during a season.

At this point in Giancarlo Stanton's career, he hasn't played more than 130 games since 2021. Stanton may go down, and the first person up should be Dominguez. The hope, by then, is that Dominguez has enough reps to be ready to get in the lineup every day and produce.

In the case of Andujar, despite not making the Opening Day roster, he saw 606 plate appearances. He hit .297/.328/.527 and was in the same position that Dominguez is in now. That can easily happen for Dominguez here in 2026.

The Stanton aspect of this is the most interesting, because his time with the club is almost up. This season, he will be making $19 million. He'll be making $15 million next year, with a club option for 2028.

After 2026

With so little money and years left, Stanton may not even make it to the end of his deal, and by next season, Trent Grisham and Paul Goldschmidt's time with the Yankees is up as well. That's three potential roster spots that can belong to Dominguez alone in the future.

It seems shortsighted just to dump him for the sake of dumping him, all because he doesn't make an Opening Day roster. Opening Day is a little overrated, aside from the excitement that baseball is back. Rarely are rosters the same from game one to game 162.

Trading Dominguez because they think Spencer Jones is ready is even more shortsighted than that. Jones has absurd power, but how does his 179 strikeouts across 116 AAA and AA games last year translate to the majors? The Yankees already played that movie with Joey Gallo.

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