Spencer Jones Remains MLB’s Most Perplexing Prospect

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Spencer Jones (Photo by Brandon Sloter/Getty Images)

Baseball America is set to update our Top 100 Prospects list to add 2025 draftees on Monday, July 28. While the update will primarily be for that purpose, we will also use it as a chance to tweak the order, in general. At BA, we continually work to gather more of the best information possible, and our Top 100 is a reflection of that.

But before the new list goes live on Monday, we thought we would give our readers a bit of a sneak peek: Yankees outfielder Spencer Jones will rejoin the Top 100 in the update.

The last time we updated our Top 100 at the start of July, Jones had just been promoted to Triple-A after spending parts of three different seasons in Double-A. We left him off the list at the time, in part because we felt Spencer’s long stretch in Double-A (188 games, 830 plate appearances) made for concerns that his strong performance was the case of a more experienced hitter succeeding at a level he’d long since grown accustomed to.

Flash forward to today, and Jones has hit 13 home runs in just 19 Triple-A games. On Thursday, he hit three in a single game. From a performance perspective, Jones’ surge means he’s been one of the best hitters in the minors this year. While hitters can go on hot streaks, Jones’ production is something that is a valuable part of his resume.

Jones’ power potential is spectacular. According to Synergy Sports’ data, 27 of the 58 fly balls he’s hit this year have gone for home runs. While that 46.6% home run rate on fly balls is an unsustainable number—Ryan Howard and Aaron Judge are the only 21st century hitters to post a HR/FB rate above 35% in an MLB season and neither of them topped 39.5%—it does speak loudly to Jones’ ability to drive the ball productively whenever he makes contact.

Jones, who turned 24 in May, had never slugged .500 or hit 20 home runs in a full minor league season before this year, but he’s already at an MiLB-leading 29 homers in 20-25, and he’s assured of slugging .500, as well. He’s slugging an MiLB-best .706 right now. If he went hitless in his next 50 at-bats, he’d still be slugging .511.

It’s hard to think of a Triple-A player with a higher variance in his realm of potential outcomes. If everything clicks for Jones, he could rank among MLB’s home run leaders. But his underlying contact issues also mean he remains at risk of being a prolific MiLB slugger who struggles to hit in the majors.

Even during the best 20-game stretch he’ll likely ever have, Jones is striking out 25.5% of the time. For the season, he’s striking out in 31.1% of plate appearances. That’s a significant improvement on last year’s frightening 36.7% rate that saw him set a new Yankees minor league record for striking out, but it remains at the absolute upper-end of MiLB strikeout rates for players who have gone on to have any sort of MLB success.

To get a better sense of the situation Jones is facing, we’ll take a look at every full-season MiLB hitter in the Baseball America database–which covers almost every 21st century hitter and many MLB hitters from the 1980s onward—who posted a 31% or higher strikeout rate in any one MiLB season and went on to have 500 or more MLB plate appearances.

There are 35 players who fit the criteria (MLB players who posted 31% strikeout rates in a MiLB season after their MLB careers were not included). Of those, there are some encouraging stories. James Wood, Trevor Story, Jazz Chisholm, Kyle Stowers, Tommy Pham and Addison Barger all went on to have success in the big leagues.

But there are many more whose MLB careers were derailed by contact issues. Wily Mo Peńa, Bobby Dalbec, Nick Pratto, MJ Melendez, Billy Ashley and Franchy Cordero are among the tooled-up prospects who couldn’t hit consistently enough in the majors to become solid regulars.

The median MLB career slash line for the 35 players in question is .229/.303/.423. They have a 29.5% career MLB strikeout rate.

That’s looking at hitters who had one season of a 31% strikeout rate. In many of the cases of the success stories, they fixed the problem in the minors.

Wood, for example, had an 18% strikeout rate in half a season in Triple-A before he reached the majors in 2024. Story had a 24% strikeout rate in his final MiLB season (2015). Pham (21%), Stowers (25%) and Barger (19%) all had dramatically reduced strikeout rates before they settled into the majors.

The biggest exception is Chisholm. Chisholm’s final MiLB season was 2019 before the pandemic-cancelled 2020 season, so he’s an odd case.

Jones’ career MiLB strikeout rate is 31.5%. Isolating MLB hitters who posted a career strikeout rate above 30% results in a much smaller group. Since 2000, we can only find seven hitters who had a 30% or higher MiLB strikeout rate who went on to have 500 or more MLB plate appearances.

There are some success stories among those seven, but they all come with some caveats. Eric Haase is currently a Brewers catcher with two seasons as a part-time regular. Brenton Doyle is an exceptional defender in center field for the Rockies who won Gold Gloves in each of his first two seasons. However, his inability to hit, even while playing at Coors Field, has hindered him.

Dalbec’s defensive ability and power earned him two seasons as a semi-regular with the Red Sox, but his strikeout woes kept him from sticking around. Pratto’s strikeout issues led him to be demoted after just 527 MLB plate appearances, and he was eventually dropped from the Royals’ 40-man roster in 2025.

The other three are the more hopeful outcomes for Jones. Chisholm’s athleticism and ability to play second base, center field and third base have made him a two-time all-star who is a consistent productive regular.

But the two remaining outfielders are probably better analogues for Jones.

Matt Wallner has been a successful part-time player for the Twins. He’s yet to log 300 plate appearances in any MLB season, partly because of injuries and partly because he’s a .167/.252/.356 hitter against lefties. But his power has played.

Joey Gallo, meanwhile, was one of the most extreme power and strikeout players the majors have ever seen. He hit 40+ home runs in back-to-back years in 2017 and 2018, totaling 151 home runs in a five-season stretch. He was also two-time Gold Glove winner in right field.

But Gallo’s last season as a semi-regular was in 2022. By 2024 he was out of the majors as a 30-year-old. For all his power, he finished as a .194/.319/.456 career hitter.

Jones’ breakout season is encouraging, which is why he’s going to rejoin the Top 100. But his contact issues remain a significant risk factor, even as he continues to pillage the International League. His combination of potential and risk should make him one of the most fascinating debates in front offices during the next few weeks, whether it is for trade discussions or as a potential MLB callup.