Spencer Jones
Player Info
Age
24
Height
6' 7"
Weight
240 lbs
Bats/Throws
Left/Left
Draft
2022 Rnull (#null)
ETA
2026
2025 Season
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders
AVG
.274
HR
19
RBI
48
OPS
.897
SB
19
G
67
Year-by-Year Stats
| Year | Team | Lvl | G | AB | H | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OBP | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | FCL Yankees | Rookie | 3 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 2 | .500 | .545 | 1.445 |
| 2022 | Tampa Tarpons | Single-A | 22 | 83 | 27 | 3 | 8 | 10 | .325 | .411 | .905 |
| 2023 | Hudson Valley Renegades | High-A | 100 | 411 | 110 | 13 | 56 | 35 | .268 | .337 | .787 |
| 2023 | Somerset Patriots | AA | 17 | 69 | 18 | 3 | 10 | 8 | .261 | .333 | .739 |
| 2024 | Somerset Patriots | AA | 122 | 482 | 125 | 17 | 78 | 25 | .259 | .336 | .788 |
| 2025 | Somerset Patriots | AA | 49 | 175 | 48 | 16 | 32 | 10 | .274 | .389 | .983 |
| 2025 | Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders | AAA | 67 | 263 | 72 | 19 | 48 | 19 | .274 | .342 | .897 |
Scouting
Scouting Grades
Hit
Power
Speed
Fielding
Arm
Scouting Report
Jones ranked among the best two-way prospects in the 2019 Draft, but an operation to repair a small fracture in his pitching elbow as a California high school senior and Tommy John surgery following his first season at Vanderbilt made him a full-time outfielder. He didn't become a full-time starter for the Commodores until his junior year, but his combination of size, power and athleticism made him a 2022 first-round pick and earned him a $2,880,800 bonus. He has a monster 2025 season, slashing .274/.362/.571 with 35 homers and 29 steals in 116 games between Double-A and Triple-A while ranking second in the Minors in homers and fifth in slugging. One of the more polarizing prospects in baseball, Jones has at least plus-plus raw power but also huge contact issues that led to alarming strikeout (35 percent) and swing-and-miss (42 percent) rates in 2025. His combination of bat speed and the strength and leverage in his huge 6-foot-7, 240-pound frame allows him to drive balls out of any part of any ballpark, and he launched balls more than ever last season. But he also has a naturally long left-handed swing, chases too many pitches and also has trouble consistently putting strikes in play. His struggles against upper-level southpaws last year (.189 average, 43 percent) also are worrisome. Jones moves better than most players his size, eating up ground with long strides and quickly accelerating to plus speed. He has swiped 97 bases at a 78 percent success rate in his three full pro seasons and is a capable center fielder with average range. Though he didn't record a single outfield assist in 104 starts last year, he has average arm strength.
FanGraphs Report
As a SoCal high schooler, Jones was a big-ceilinged, late-first round prospect as both a hitter and a pitcher, but a surgery senior year to repair a fracture in his elbow was a blow to his draft stock and he ended up heading to Vanderbilt, where he re-injured his elbow as a freshman and required Tommy John surgery. Jones then focused solely on hitting. After an understandably rusty sophomore year in which it looked like the game was too fast for him, Jones moved from first base to right field and became a full-time starter in his junior draft season. He tweaked his swing throughout the spring and began to look more comfortable with the pace and difficulty of SEC baseball, as well as his gigantic body. The Yankees took him late in the first round and put Jones in center field, and he reached Double-A Somerset in a power- and strikeout-laden first full pro season. Jones has enormous potential, with eventual 40-homer power in the tank, and I think over time he's going to be able to shorten up and still get to enormous pop. His previous two-way prospect status, the pandemic, his college injuries, and Jones' outlier size are all "tip of the iceberg" traits that suggest late development. The hit tool is the key variable here. There is probably going to be an initial adjustment period against big league stuff, but the two-way Jones' stride length helps him galavant around center field with promise. He has rep-based projection there because he hasn't done it for very long, but at his size, it's entirely possible that he'll get too big and slow to stay there by the time his feel for the position improves to the big league standard. Even though his swing has been simplified, there is always going to be a ton of swing-and-miss here because of Jones' lever length. His 2023 whiff rates were only about one standard deviation worse than what's typical of a big league center fielder, with an overwhelming majority of his misses coming at the top of the strike zone and against backfoot breaking balls. He needs to be able to lift the ball more to actualize all of that power, which might mean further simplifying his cut. I don't expect any of this will come together in a hurry, and Jones is still more of a risky developmental prospect with a huge ceiling than he is ready for the big leagues. But as far as ceilings go, in this case we're talking about St. Patrick's Cathedral. Jones is on a post-2025 40-man timeline and has only had a cup of coffee at Double-A. He could feasibly spend most of the next two seasons at Somerset and Scranton because, again, there are clearly things he needs to work on at this stage. <em>So</em> much of this depends on whether or not the Yankees are contending, but for now I'd expect a late-2025 call-up (preserving all of his option years), with the huge impact not arriving in a consistent fashion until 2027 or so.