🚨 INSIDE YANKEES REALITY CHECK: The Yankees may need to prepare for a far tougher road ahead with Jasson Domínguez than early excitement suggested, and what’s emerging behind the scenes is forcing the organization to confront expectations they may have set too high, too fast.

Remember when Jasson Dominguez was being hailed as the next Mickey Mantle within the New York Yankees organization? That was just a couple of years ago, but at this point, it may as well have been eons ago.

Dominguez played his first full big-league season in 2025, and the results were mostly uninspiring. He slashed .257/.331/.388 with 10 home runs and 47 RBI over 429 plate appearances and homered just four times after May. And for all of his speed, he only logged 18 doubles.

To make matters worse, Dominguez was nothing short of a nightmare in the outfield, managing a minus-7 DRS and minus-10 OAA over 793 innings in left field.

Currently, with Cody Bellinger still on the open market, Dominguez is slotted in as the Yankees’ starting left fielder, and I find it hard to imagine they are entirely comfortable with that.

After all, Dominguez was essentially benched down the stretch this past season because of his defensive deficiencies, and his bat simply was not good enough to compensate for those issues.

This has led to rather rampant trade speculation surrounding Dominguez, the 22-year-old who was once largely viewed as untouchable.

But how much trade value does Dominguez actually have at this point?

There are certainly a bunch of teams that would be interesting in giving the Dominican native a chance. He is still very young and has room for growth. But how much better will Dominguez actually get? Will he ever reach the star potential most felt he had in the minors?

Yankees Must Brace for Rude Awakening With Jasson Dominguez — New York Yankees outfielder Jasson Dominguez. Credit: Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Let’s face it: Dominguez will never be a good outfielder. The instincts simply aren’t there, and even before hitting the majors, scouting reports revealed that he would probably have to be moved out of center field and to the corners.

And for all of the talk about Dominguez’s bat, his high-water mark for homers on the minor-league level was 16. Taking that into consideration, it’s hard to imagine him ever becoming more than a 20-25 home run guy — at most — in the bigs.

A recent report surfaced that teams didn’t really like what the Yankees have been offering in trades this winter. Could that mean Dominguez’s value has plummeted?

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean New York has been shopping Dominguez. Maybe the Yanks have specifically been leaving Dominguez out of trade packages up until this point. But based on what we saw in 2025, you kind of get the feeling that everyone has soured on Dominguez as a whole.

Dominguez definitely has some positives to his game. He has impressive plate discipline for a youngster, he possesses blazing speed and he is a good baserunner. However, his lack of power combined with his defensive drawbacks make him a tough sell.

You know you’re getting a minus defender if you stick him anywhere in the outfield, and he isn’t good enough of a hitter to be a DH. At least not now.

This isn’t so say that Dominguez is doomed or that he can’t be a contributor on a strong roster, but I do think that “The Martian” is not nearly as highly regarded as he once was.

The Yankees themselves might even feel that way.

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