Yankees: Jasson Dominguez-Mike Trout comparison is infuriating

Yankees teenager Jasson Dominguez might be really good. But please stop writing these comparison pieces.

Leave! Jasson! Alone!

Don’t shoot the messenger here. We’re just trying to prevent a series of documentaries in 20 years about the “Free Jasson” movement.

The Yankees organization — and every able-bodied fan in the tri-state area — is extremely eager to see Dominguez in action stateside this season for his first actual in-game experience at the professional level.

Will it be in Hudson Valley? Tampa? Regardless of the locale, the first time Dominguez selects his lumber from the bat rack will be the first time he’s done so in a minor-league game with standings involved.

And so, even though we’ve all grown ever more curious with every high-exit-velocity cage highlight we’ve seen, it’s probably not the best time to be talking about how Dominguez is lapping Mike Trout at his own game.

Yankees prospect Jasson Dominguez is better than Mike Trout…kinda, but not really at all.

You want to read some of the insanity behind this headline? Of course you do.

Crafted to make you believe upon consumption that Dominguez’s path to beating out Trout as the greatest to ever do it is now paved with guarantees, the text immediately qualifies the assertion that he’s ahead of Trout’s pace.

As ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel detailed on the conference call from whence this tidbit came:

“You can kind of pick whatever name you want. Technically, (Dominguez is) more advanced than Trout was at the same age because Trout went, what was it, [25th] overall as an 18-year-old, and this guy is not 18 yet and he was considered the best 16-year-old in the world a year ago, and he’s probably still the best 17-year-old,” McDaniel said last week on a conference call.“Now, the best 16-year-old isn’t always the best 25-year-old. Like sometimes they fall within that cohort. So you don’t know where it’s going to go, but right now he has done everything he can possibly do, and we’re about to find out where that’s going to slot.”

See, that’s it. Trout wasn’t the greatest 18-year-old in the world! He wasn’t the most highly-sought-after 18-year-old in his own draft; that honor goes to either Padres outfielder Donavan Tate, who was taken third overall and eventually became the University of Arizona’s quarterback, or Matt Hobgood (?), a righty pitcher who never made the Orioles.

Did Trout have potential? Sure! And he eventually became Mike Trout!

But Dominguez’s skills rivaling Trout’s in isolation seems fairly irrelevant, especially since Trout’s trajectory was a rocket ship from that moment forward.

We’d like to see a bit of Dominguez in any context before we map Trout’s against-the-odds path directly onto The Martian’s experience.

Dominguez has all the potential in the universe. At this rate, it’ll still be beating the odds if he ever becomes a big-league regular for the Yankees.

That’s how prospects work! It’s very hard to realize your full potential!

Let’s hope the Yankees’ minor-league coaches have studied Trout’s path and have a good plan in place to maximize Dominguez’s skills. For now, let’s shut down these comparisons, which do the player a disservice and unnecessarily hype up the fan base while removing all context.

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