The Martian Crashes to Earth, as Jasson Domínguez’s Torn UCL Ends a Promising Debut Stint

Apparently, the Yankees can’t have nice things even after shifting their focus to next season. Less than two weeks into his major league career, and just two days after he hit the fourth home run of his brief stay with the Yankees, long-awaited prospect Jasson Domínguez — nicknamed “The Martian” for his otherworldly collection of tools — has been diagnosed with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. He’ll soon undergo season-ending surgery that will likely sideline him for part of 2024 as well.

The 20-year-old Domínguez, who has been on prospect hounds’ radars since he signed out of the Dominican Republic for a $5.1-million bonus in 2019, entered the season ranked 50th on our Top 100 Prospects list and third on the Yankees list as a switch-hitting 50 FV prospect with a projected ETA of 2025. He did not figure in the Yankees’ immediate plans for this season, having split his 2022 campaign between A-level Tampa and High-A Hudson Valley. He finished the year with a 10-game cameo at Double-A Somerset; the last five of those games were in the Eastern League playoffs, capped by a two-homer, six-RBI performance in the championship series clincher.

This season, Domínguez hit .254/.367/.414 (117 wRC+) with 15 homers, 37 steals, and a 15.2% walk rate at Somerset, albeit with a dramatic improvement from the first half to the second. Before the All-Star break he scuffled, batting just .204/.345/.346 (95 wRC+) with 10 homers, 23 steals, and a 28.4% strikeout rate, numbers mitigated somewhat by his plate discipline (17.7% walk rate) and his age in a league where he was nearly four years younger than the average position player. He caught fire after the break, doing a better job of making contact and translating his 65-grade raw power into game power, hitting .354/.416/.549 with five homers and 13 steals from July 14 through August 20 while trimming his strikeout rate to 19.3%. He not only netted Player of the Week honors in the final week of his run at Somerset, he earned a promotion to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

Meanwhile, a combination of injuries and underperformances by aging veterans wrecked the Yankees’ season, with a 4-15 skid from August 6–27 sealing their fate. In the middle of that mess, they began turning over their roster, placing outfielder Billy McKinney on the injured list and recalling outfielder Everson Pereira and infielder Oswald Peraza from Scranton, designating outfielder Greg Allen for assignment, and releasing third baseman Josh Donaldson just as he was nearing a rehab assignment following a Grade 2 calf strain. On August 29, they placed underperforming center fielder Harrison Bader, a pending free agent, on waivers. He was claimed by the Reds on September 1, effectively clearing the way for the Yankees to call up Domínguez, who had hit a sizzling .419/.514/.581 in 37 PA at Scranton. Additionally, the Yankees called up catcher Austin Wells.

That set the stage for a storybook debut against the Astros at Minute Maid Park on September 1. Batting fourth in the lineup and facing Justin Verlander — no pressure, kid! — with a runner on first, Domínguez took a curveball for strike one, then unloaded on a belt-high fastball, connecting for a 100.2-mph, 360-foot opposite field home run into the Crawford Boxes.

With that, the 20-year, 206-day-old Domínguez became the youngest Yankee ever to homer in his major league debut and the fifth-youngest player to homer in his first career plate appearance:

After collecting a single off Rafael Montero in his second game, Domínguez went yard again in his third, this time with a two-run homer off Cristian Javier that helped the Yankees sweep the Astros. He doubled off the Tigers’ Brendan White in his fourth game, then hit a solo homer off Detroit’s Beau Brieske in his fifth, part of a three-hit night. He finally went hitless on September 7, his sixth game, but rebounded to club a two-run homer off the Brewers’ Colin Rea the next night (with this scribe in attendance), making him the youngest player since 1900 to homer in four of his first seven AL/NL games. Including his 0-for-4, three-strikeout performance on Friday, he finished with a .258/.303/.677 (161 wRC+) line and 24.1% strikeout rate in 33 PA.

Via The Athletic, Domínguez first felt soreness in his elbow during batting practice on September 3, but was able to play through it (and homer). He didn’t report his discomfort to Yankee trainers until three days later (when he homered again), and it continued to feel “progressively worse” since Wednesday.

“Today, when he was doing his BP and routine and swinging, he couldn’t pop the ball or hit it hard, so we got him tested during the game,” said manager Aaron Boone on Sunday. “I’m crushed for him… At the same time, he’s a young man, and these things resolve themselves. It’s a moment in time, in the grand scheme of things, in what we feel like has a chance to be a long, excellent career.”

Through an interpreter, Domingez described the results of the scan as “very shocking news.”

While acknowledging, “There’s always wiggle room” regarding injury timelines, on Sunday Boone said that Domínguez will need nine or 10 months to rehab from surgery, which would place the outfielder’s return sometime between mid-June and the All-Star break of next season. But the actual timing will depend in part upon what type of surgery he undergoes, and so far, the exact nature of the procedure has yet to be determined.

Most UCL tears are repaired via Tommy John surgery, using a tendon graft, but some can be repaired using the newer internal brace technique, which creates an artificial ligament using collagen-coated suture tape. The newer technique, which can only be used on certain types of tears, has a shorter recovery time than a traditional TJ, though returns for position players generally happen more quickly than for pitchers anyway. Rhys Hoskins underwent internal brace surgery on October 2, 2020 and was back in the lineup six months later, on April 1, 2021, while Trevor Story needed seven months from surgery (January 9, 2023) to his return to the Red Sox lineup (August 8). Former Yankee Aaron Hicks underwent a traditional Tommy John surgery on October 30, 2019, and was back about nine months later, on July 23, but that was because Opening Day had been delayed by the pandemic. Bryce Harper returned in just 160 days, albeit at the cost of not being able to play the field, and he’s been limited to first base since picking up a glove.

Domínguez’s course of action won’t be clear until he finishes consulting with doctors, but he won’t be in the majors at the outset of 2024, which means that the Yankees will have to find another center fielder, at least for the short term. Whether the stocky, muscular Domínguez, who lists at 5-foot-10 and 190 pounds on our site but may be an inch shorter and 20-25 pounds heavier, can stick in center is a big question, as his ball skills are suspect according to Eric Longenhagen.

As illustrated at numerous turns this year, the Yankees’ organization is woefully thin in the outfield aside from Aaron Judge; he and the bygone Bader have combined for 3.6 WAR in 555 PA as outfielders, while everybody else who’s played the pasture has netted a combined -1.0 WAR in 1,144 PA. Remarkably enough, Domínguez’s 0.3 WAR in his tiny slice of playing time is tied for third behind Judge and Bader.

Indeed, between Brian Cashman’s decision not to upgrade left field this past winter, and the injuries of Bader and Judge, the Yankees have given far too much playing time to Quad-A types such as McKinney, Allen, Jake Bauers, Franchy Cordero, and Willie Calhoun. They’ve combined for 0.4 WAR in 432 PA as outfielders, and 0.3 WAR in 641 PA including their time at DH and other positions. Oswaldo Cabrera, a homegrown prospect who showed promise in his late-2022 callup, has been dreadful, hitting .207/.273/.297 (59 wRC+) with -0.7 WAR in 257 PA while playing every position besides pitcher and catcher but mostly the outfield. Isiah Kiner-Falefa has only been slightly better, hitting .243/.307/.347 (83 wRC+) with 0.3 WAR in 333 PA while taking up time in the outfield as well.

The 22-year-old Pereira hasn’t provided much help yet. A 45+ FV prospect, he entered the season fourth on the Yankees list, with plus power and above-average speed but questions about his hit tool and his defense in center field, where he played primarily while at Hudson and Somerset last season. Though he missed about three weeks in June due to an unspecified injury, Pereira hit a combined .300/.373/.548 (138 wRC+) with 18 homers in 343 PA split between Somerset and Scranton, spending time in all three outfield spots (25 of his 75 outfield starts were in center). When the Yankees called him up, it was with the intention that he’d play left field, where he’s made all 18 of his appearances. He’s done almost nothing against major league pitching so far, hitting .150/.239/.200 (27 wRC+) with a 37.3% strikeout rate, though his contact stats (91.2 mph average exit velo, 11.4% barrel rate, 57.1% hard-hit rate) do at least show some promise.

As for who will play center in Domínguez’s absence, the answer is Estevan Florial, a 25-year-old lefty swinger who has hit just .185/.302/.278 in 30 games and 63 PA of major league playing time spread from 2020–23 but who no longer qualifies as a prospect due to how much time he’s spent on the active roster. Florial’s stock has long since fallen from his days as a Futures Game participant (2017) and Top 100 Prospect (79th here in 2018 and 106th in ’19, but higher in both years via other outlets). In his last FanGraphs prospect list appearance, he was no. 32 on the Yankees’ 2021 list, a 35+ FV prospect with 70-grade speed and 60-grade raw power but just a 30-grade hit tool. His 30.3% strikeout rate in 1,305 PA at Scranton over the past three seasons (29.9% this year) has borne that issue out.

Florial did hit a robust .284/.380/.565 with 28 homers and 25 steals at Scranton, but after making the Yankees’ Opening Day roster, pinch-running for Giancarlo Stanton and spending an inning in center field, he was designated for assignment so that the team could add another pitcher. He went unclaimed and was outrighted to Triple-A, and while the team had ample opportunities to restore him to the 40-man roster amid myriad injuries, they did not. In sharing his updated notes with me, Longenhagen wrote, “His top hand does seem more involved in his swing and his groundball rate has dropped [from 42.5% to 37.6%],” adding, “His plate coverage (especially against soft stuff in the bottom of the zone) is still really bad, and there are lots of statistical indicators that this guy is at best going to have a 30-grade hit tool.” Longenhagen pointed to Jose Siri as an example of a player with enough power to play a role despite a high strikeout rate, and added that between Pereira, Cabrera, and Florial, it’s fair to hope that one of them “will end up being flawed-but-dangerous components toward the bottom of a competitive lineup.”

None of those players looks as though they could make the kind of impact that Domínguez can. As the Yankees pick up the pieces from this season shattered by bad luck and bad planning, the Martian’s injury only adds to their growing list of disappointments.