Yankees young stud takes major step in return from injury

Yankees outfielder Jasson Dominguez began a minor league rehab assignment Tuesday, per a team announcement. That effectively presses the start button on a 20-day rehab window before he must either be optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre or reinstated to the MLB roster. He’s starting out in Class-A Tampa, but he’ll very likely move up the ladder over the next couple of weeks.

Dominguez underwent Tommy John surgery last summer, so it’s fairly natural that Yankees skipper Aaron Boone indicated over the weekend that the 21-year-old will be limited to DH work in the early stages of rehab. This will be the first game action for Dominguez since early September, when he burst onto the big league scene with a promising .258/.303/.677 batting line in 33 plate appearances. Dominguez homered off notable big leaguers like Justin Verlander and Cristian Javier, ultimately popping four round-trippers in his brief debut before being diagnosed with a ligament tear in his elbow.

Prior to that debut, Dominguez had split the season between Double-A and Triple-A, recording 507 plate appearances at the former level and 37 at the latter. He batted a combined .265/.377/.425 despite being just 20 years old. He was about four years younger than his average opponent in Double-A and more than six years younger than the average Triple-A player.

Had Dominguez been healthy, the Yankees offseason could well have looked different. They’d still quite likely have made an aggressive push to land Juan Soto from the Padres, but it’s fair to wonder whether Alex Verdugo would’ve still been a prominent trade target with both Dominguez and Aaron Judge projected to be healthy. It seems likely that would not have been the case.

Now, with Verdugo, Soto and Judge all hitting well and Giancarlo Stanton still providing thump from the DH spot (despite a .283 OBP), it’s not as clear how Dominguez might fit onto the roster. He’d certainly be expected to outproduce the surprisingly anemic .069/.270/.172 line that Trent Grisham has mustered thus far, but that’s come in a sample of only 38 plate appearances. There’s likely some merit to the idea that a longtime starter like Grisham has struggled mightily with the move to such a limited role, but the minimal playing time he’s received is the primary reason why Dominguez likely wouldn’t be considered for such a role.

Even if the Yankees felt Dominguez could outperform that pace (which they surely do), putting a touted 21-year-old in a position to get seven or eight plate appearances per week would be a poor move for his development. Whenever Dominguez is deemed healthy enough to be reinstated from the injured list, the Yankees presumably want him to be ticketed for regular at-bats. The current construction of the big league roster doesn’t look ideal for that setup, though all it would take would be one injury to Verdugo, Judge, Soto or Stanton to open up some more substantial playing time.

Of the current outfielders, only Verdugo seems even remotely plausible as a trade candidate, but he’s produced a respectable .243/.329/.397 batting line (111 wRC+) while drawing more walks (11.4%) than strikeouts (10.8%). There’d be ample risk (to put it mildly) in moving a steady veteran enjoying that type of performance to free up playing time for a 21-year-old with eight games of big league experience, regardless of his prospect status. There’s been some speculation about a potential Verdugo trade among fans and pundits alike, but such a scenario seems decidedly unlikely.

Barring an injury in the big league outfield, an eventual minor league assignment for Dominguez feels almost inevitable. He’s still played in only 17 total games above the Double-A level. But with Verdugo and Soto both set to become free agents at season’s end and Grisham playing his way into a non-tender candidate, there’s still a clear path to a prominent role for Dominguez in the long-term — it just might not happen this season.

DJ LeMahieu will follow Dominguez in beginning a minor league rehab stint later this week, per Greg Joyce of the New York Post. It’s the second time he’ll start a rehab assignment as he returns from a season-opening injured list stay. LeMahieu joined Double-A Somerset on April 23 but was removed in the first inning after experiencing renewed soreness in his right foot. The veteran infielder was diagnosed with a non-displaced fracture in his foot at the end of spring training.

Oswaldo Cabrera and Jon Berti have split the third base work in LeMahieu’s absence. Cabrera started the season well before a recent slump dropped his batting line to .252/.295/.390 in 132 plate appearances. The speedster Berti is hitting .263 without an extra-base hit and only two walks in 41 trips.