Yankees call up 1st-round pick in latest sign of aggression

Spencer Jones and Aaron Judge are 6-foot-7. Both are first-round picks with massive power.

While those similarities of size and power are accurate, the nature of how they debuted with the Yankees are starkly different.

Either way, however long Jones' first taste of major league action lasts, the Yankees and the rest of baseball are eager to see how it unfolds.

Jones was put into a tough spot in his big league debut in Friday's 6-0 loss at Milwaukee since the first major league pitcher he faced was Jacob Misorowski, who arrived last year with similar hype and made the All-Star team with five starts under his belt.

So far, Jones' major league stats are 0-for-2, a walk, and a pair of strikeouts. By comparison, after his first game way back in 2016, Judge was at one homer on the road to likely hitting 400 later this season after homering in his first at-bat.

"He's got an electric fastball," Jones told reporters. "Never seen pitches that hard in my life. To be able to foul off a couple was pretty great, I'll take that for now."

Yankees in better position for Jones' debut than Judge's 2016 debut

Jones was called up for the Yankees' 39th game and joined the best team in the American League.

Eventually, he would have arrived, but with an opening day outfield of Judge, Cody Bellinger, and Trent Grisham, along with Giancarlo Stanton at designated hitter, there was no point in keeping him on the bench and getting limited at-bats.

The regular at-bats occurred in Triple-A, where Jones hit .258 with 11 homers and a .958 OPS. One of those homers was a 117.4 mph shot, a drive that was the second hardest-hit ball in the minors through last Sunday.

Mixed in were 46 strikeouts in 142 plate appearances. It is a slight improvement from last season, when Jones fanned 179 times in 506 plate appearances.

Jones was not the first call when Stanton injured his calf two weeks ago in Houston. Instead, Jasson Dominguez was the replacement, and his improvement defensively showed with a terrific catch to open Thursday's win.

The diving catch also cost Dominguez a few weeks when he crashed into the chainlink part of the left field fence and was diagnosed with a concussion, and first thoughts of many wondered if Jones would be the replacement after his extended look in spring training.

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Yankees were starting a retool when Judge debuted

By Aug. 2016, most of the Yankee core from the 2009 title team was aging out or simply retired. Two years after Derek Jeter's retirement, Alex Rodriguez was on the way out after an eventful 12 seasons where he did some things that might cost him a Hall of Fame spot.

Rodriguez lost his starting job in late June and was getting sporadic playing time, leading to an announcement of his final games about a week earlier during a press conference so crowded that even someone from the CNN news department showed up. The final game occurred Aug. 12, 2016, when thunder cracked in the background before his thank you speech to fans.

While Rodriguez was ending, Judge was playing his final game in the minors and on the way to the Bronx to join a team with a 59-56 record after two non-playoff seasons and a three-hour appearance in the 2015 wild card game.

Judge homered in his first at-bat, but not much else, while the real star was Gary Sanchez, hitting 20 homers before the catcher's time with the Yankees petered out, and he became a journeyman now with the Brewers. Judge hit four homers in 27 games but also struck out 42 times in 84 at-bats before his season ended with an oblique injury on a swing.

The next season, Judge emerged with 52 homers and 114 RBIs. The power set a rookie record that was broken by Pete Alonso hitting 53 for the Mets in 2019.

Judge also led the league with 208 strikeouts, but the 52 homers and .284 made that total bearable, knowing he would gradually reduce strikeouts. He was still striking out 175 times in 2022 but also hit an AL-record 62 homers as the Yankees won 99 games before injuries caught up to them in the postseason.

In other words, the strikeouts are part of many prolific power hitter. Those are easy to overlook if Jones winds up with anything resembling a similar career to what Judge has achieved in the past decade.

"I mean that's fair," Boone told reporters about the criticism of Jones' strikeout total. "That's the biggest issue he's faced throughout his minor-league career and something he and we have tried to address, continued to work to get better and he's done that. I thought this spring was really good as far as seeing some of the adjustments he's making to improve on those kind of things."

Adding Jones is another example of Yankee aggression

The Yankees are showing aggressiveness on the field and in the transaction column. The willingness to run the bases aggressively (even Stanton stole a base earlier this season) seems to be followed in roster moves.

The biggest evidence of this is how they handled Anthony Volpe. Volpe could have easily rejoined the Yankees after his 20-day rehab window ended but instead, the Yankees opted to keep him in the minors and let Jose Caballero roll with the shortstop job.

The minute Dominguez endured his scary crash, the Yankees could have decided to promote someone else. Instead, they liked enough of what they saw in Jones and his first weeks will provide more intrigue to an already interesting season that becomes more compelling when Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole return from injuries.

Related: Aaron Judge Shares Opinion After Yankees Quiet Offseason

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This story was originally published May 9, 2026 at 12:12 PM.