Baseball America's new Yankees Top 10 prospects list features 1 massive drop

New York Yankees slugging outfield prospect Spencer Jones remains an enormous man. Unfortunately, according to Baseball America, the bigger they come, the harder they fall.

The 6'7" Jones ended the 2024 season with some acceptable counting numbers, bouncing back from a tough first half to drill 17 homers and slug .452 at the Double-A level, his highest full-season totals in pro ball.

Unfortunately, his strikeouts rose precipitously, and his agreed-upon national ranking dropped. Once deemed untouchable in trade talks for the likes of Dylan Cease and (one year of) Corbin Burnes, Jones is now seemingly closer to persona non grata throughout the league.

In Baseball America's latest top 10 list for the Yankees' system, he ranks behind not only George Lombard Jr. and Roderick Arias, but admitted projects like 2024 draftees Ben Hess and Bryce Cunningham, both pitchers flecked with question marks. Jones in the No. 6 spot is as good an argument as any that the Yankees' system has hit a developmental stumbling block. Is it any wonder that they seem to have absorbed most of the expected risk without any of the reward?

Yankees' Spencer Jones plummets down Baseball America Top 10 prospect list

And yeah, no, he's not going to be in their league-wide Top 100, either. Now, there's work to be done in rebuilding his image. Despite a comparatively strong second half (.326 average with a .903 OPS in August, five homers and a .949 OPS in September), the swing-and-miss was simply too much to bear for these prominent prospect analysts.

Besides, any time you end up surrounded by Chase Hampton (injured), Will Warren (fell flat), and Henry Lalane (definitely also severely injured) after lost seasons, it's certainly time to reevaluate everything from the top down.

Jones ranked as Baseball America's 46th-best prospect prior to the 2024 season, as well as 84th in MLB Pipeline's rankings. By mid-year, he had slipped out of their top 100 entirely. Preseason predictors thought that Jones had the potential to lock his tools into place and rise from the 60-80 range all the way into the consensus top 10, league-wide. That did not occur. Instead, his 36.8% K percentage -- up from 28.2% the year prior -- dominated the narrative. The raw power and game power, both expected to eventually develop into 70-grade tools on the scale that tops out at 80 -- both manifested. Not only did Jones have a whiff issue, though, but he whiffed at a historically unacceptable rate, which usually portends unilateral failure.

Bottom line? Jones has some serious developmental work to do with his long, loping swing before the Yankees ever have to worry about overcrowding in their own outfield, and 2025 will be pivotal in determining whether they can salvage some trade value here. Unfortunately, they might've created another Oswald Peraza.