When Jasson Domínguez blasted a hanging Luke Jackson slider into the second deck to win the game for the Yankees on Wednesday, it felt like a seminal moment for the 22-year-old rookie. Not only was it the first walk-off home run the franchise had experienced since 2022, it came off the bat of a young player who fans kept a close eye on for many years during a long and bumpy path to the major leagues.
It was a bit of a slow start to the season for Domínguez, who won the starting left-field job out of spring training after recovery from Tommy John surgery, an oblique injury, and the team’s stubborn insistence on starting Alex Verdugo kept him out of the big-league lineup for almost all of 2024. He had just a .687 OPS after the first month of the year, he was chasing too many pitches out of the zone, and having trouble accessing his raw power. Struggles like these are to be expected for a young rookie in his first season starting at the highest level, but the pressure of performing at Yankee Stadium coupled with the fact that Domínguez’s name had been mentioned for years among the top prospects in baseball led to some criticism, and expectations that the young outfielder must straighten it out quickly.
In the month of May, he’s exceeded those expectations and then some. Since May 1st, Domínguez has a .250/.362/.542 slash line (.904 OPS), .292 ISO, and 153 wRC+. Four of his six home runs have come this month, and he’s walked nine times with just 13 strikeouts. On May 9th in Sacramento, he had the best performance of his young career with three home runs and seven RBI in a 10-2 victory. The walk-off blast on Wednesday felt like the rookie was unlocking a new level of his development into a young offensive star.
On the season as a whole, Domínguez is hitting .236/.333/.429 with a .762 OPS and 118 wRC+. His OPS is right in line with Gunnar Henderson, Austin Riley, Jackson Holliday, and Randy Arozarena. His wRC+ is the same as Brent Rooker and Dansby Swanson, and a touch higher than Trea Turner and Oneil Cruz. His .193 ISO is just below Bryce Harper, and higher than Juan Soto and Julio Rodríguez. Domínguez is doing this while adjusting to a full-time starting role in Yankee Stadium after a year plagued by injuries and inconsistency. It’s exactly what the Yankees wanted to see from him in this situation, and it’s made all the more impressive by the difficult road he had to travel to get here.
Given the extraordinary circumstances of his developmental timeline, what “The Martian” is doing is all the more impressive. Domínguez has been under immense pressure to succeed since he was just 16 years old, when MLB Network ran a borderline irresponsible report comparing him to Mike Trout and Mickey Mantle. This made it so that even casual Yankees fans knew his name right away, and anything other than resounding, immediate success would would be considered a huge disappointment.
Domínguez officially signed with the Yankees during the international free-agent period in January of 2019 for a then-record $5.1 million. Players in those classes, especially ones who sign as young as he did, typically take the next two seasons to get their feet wet in the Dominican Summer League and the Florida Complex League before getting their first taste of stateside competition around the time they turn 18.
Dominguez did not have the luxury of following that timeline. The COVID-19 pandemic knocked out a full year of minor-league baseball in 2020, costing him a crucial year of development that could’ve proved detrimental to his career. Instead, he spent just seven games at their Florida Complex in 2021 before being thrown into Low-A, where he ran a 31-percent strikeout rate and was just barely above league average.
The rollercoaster start to his career was enough to cause a decline in his stock before the 2022 season, but Domínguez gained momentum that year and posted a 135 wRC+ in total across three levels (Low-A, High-A, Double-A). He stayed hot in 2023, spending most of the year in Double-A before earning a promotion to Triple-A, where he dominated in just nine games and earned a call-up to the pros. That might not have happened had the Yanks not been plagued by injuries and underperformance that year, but the Martian capitalized on his shot, homering off Justin Verlander in his very first at-bat and then going deep three more times, good for a 160 wRC+ in 33 PA.
It was a bright spot which provided hope for the future during a disappointing season for the Yankees. But that feeling quickly soured when it was announced that he would undergo Tommy John surgery, cutting his 2023 short in early September and forcing him to miss the first few months of the 2024 campaign.
This was particularly brutal for a player who lost a crucial development year due to reasons entirely beyond his control, and came at what felt like the worst possible time. This sent him all the way back to Low-A on a rehab assignment last spring, where he predictably dominated before suffering another injury in the form of an oblique strain which knocked him out for another two months.
The Martian did eventually return to the Bronx later in the year, but by the time he arrived the team was fully committed to starting Verdugo in left field and Domínguez was mostly relegated to bench duties. When they did briefly give some regular reps in September, he struggled (particularly on defense) and ceded the job back to Verdugo.
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Domínguez recorded just 67 PA in 18 games and was nowhere near as productive as he was in his first stint, hitting just .179 with an 84 wRC+. The Yankees did not give him an at-bat in the postseason.
The chaotic nature of his timeline makes this breakout season all the more impressive, and speaks to Domínguez’s professionalism and resilience as a player. A learning curve for a young rookie is to be expected, and given how many obstacles Domínguez has had to overcome in his career, it would be understandable to give him an even longer leash than most players of his age and caliber.
It’s remarkable that for the most part, he hasn’t needed it. His strikeout rate is high, his left-field defense can kindly be described as a work in progress, and his numbers from the right side of the plate are bad enough that the Yankees will have to keep an eye on the switch-hitter’s ability to actually switch-hit. Still, Domínguez has overcome a lot, and continues to prove he belongs in the Yankee lineup for years to come.
If you’ve been following his career closely, this resilience should come as no surprise. Jasson Domínguez has been knocked down quite a bit, but he gets right back up every time.
