Yankees: Jasson Dominguez promoted as hype train starts to roll

No, 18-year-old Jasson Dominguez will not be showing up in the Bronx after the break to fix the New York Yankees’ centerfield woes.

He has, however, taken the first major post-Futures Game step towards being a big-league piece someday soon.

Dominguez, whose development was somewhat impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic even though his strength wasn’t, was treated with kid gloves this season, as his stateside debut was set in the barely-covered “Florida Complex League,” which began only a few weeks ago.

Despite a debut that was called a “slow start” by certain Yankees columnists (spoiler alert: it wasn’t, it was normal), Dominguez has now earned a promotion to full-season baseball, which we’ve all been waiting for.

Might as well see what he’s got against pitchers who aren’t quite as scared of him (and have superior control), right?

Dominguez will move up to Low-A Tampa on Tuesday as part of an uncharacteristic wave of Yankees promotions that are probably all coming quicker than they might’ve in 2019. Seems like the lost season of 2020 might’ve cranked up the urgency a bit in New York’s player development system.

Yankees top prospect Jasson Dominguez is heading to Tampa!

Tampa loses one fast-rising minor-league MVP candidate in Anthony Volpe and replaces him with another more-hyped name. What a world!

This should make it much easier to track Dominguez’s statistics, if nothing else, as FCL games are barely treated as legitimate competition by the number crunchers (and by those who broadcast MiLB games). Overall, Dominguez hit .200 with a .407 OBP, proving he’s got a keen eye while getting his bearings. We haven’t learned much, though, and we’re more excited to see him shine alongside slightly older competition.

Of course, most Yankee fans got their first glimpse of The Martian this weekend in Denver while the big league team was wiling away the last game before the break in Houston. In three Futures Game ABs, Dominguez scalded a 106 MPH liner to third that was caught before striking out twice.

Dominguez is still much closer to the beginning of the journey than the end, and there’s almost a 0.0% chance he makes a Juan Soto-like blind faith leap to MLB by the end of next season. This move shouldn’t get your hopes up for that.

Clearly, though, the kid was ready for the next step of exposure, especially after being shown off on the national stage this weekend after just 20 minor-league at-bats of any kind. The Yankees still won’t be rushing him, but they’ve at least chosen to up the difficulty level a bit and get the sequence of events in motion.

Yankees: Column ripping Jasson Dominguez’s debut is pathetic

This NJ.com column about how Yankees prize prospect Jasson Dominguez "struggled" in his minor-league debut is the reason this team is bad.