Spencer Jones homered again Thursday, and it impressed even his manager.
The New York Yankees‘ power-laden prospect wowed Aaron Boone and the rest of his teammates with his home run that hit a car outside of George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa.
Jones now has two long home runs this spring and has an OPS north of 1.7 through seven plate appearances. His seventh-inning homer gave the Yankees a 7-3 lead they would not relinquish in their victory over the Atlanta Braves.
Aaron Boone: Spencer Jones Showed ‘What He’s Capable of’
The Yankees know Jones has power. But they are seeing first hand just how effortlessly the power comes for the 6-7 outfield prospect.
After working the count to 2-0, Jones smoked a ball with an exit velocity of 107 mph that was judged to go 401 feet — out of the Yankees spring-training home and onto Dale Mabry Highway, which intersects Steinbrenner Field and Raymond James Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“He put a really good swing on that ball,” Boone said. “Obviously, that’s what he’s capable of right there.”
Jones has only made his outs on strikeouts during the spring, and his only hits are home runs. He has been criticized for his penchant for striking out — he K’d 200 times in the minors two years ago — and has a 4-to-1 strikeout-to-walk rate so far this spring.
But even with the swings and misses, Boone has seen progress and is encouraged by Jones’ at-bats, especially his lone plate appearance Thursday. Facing righty Austin Pope, Jones laid off two off-speed pitches just off the plate before launching his team-lead-sharing second homer of the spring.
“I feel like he’s put together some good at-bats,” Boone said, according to Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. “He’s getting a lot of playing time, which is good. He’s a big man that’s made a lot of adjustments, that’s tried to get himself into good positions. Hopefully he can keep building on that.”
Spencer Jones Relishes the Shohei Ohtani Comps
For any player to be referenced as Shohei Ohtani-like is high praise. But for Jones, a 24-year-old who has never had a major league plate appearance to begin getting comparisons to the two-way Los Angeles Dodgers superstar remarkable.
Yet, both the MLB and Yankees official accounts noted what YES Network did: that Jones and Ohtani look strikingly similar with their stances and swings.
https://x.com/YESNetwork/status/2027122236750962749
“He’s a great reference of a really good mover with a great swing,” Jones said. “He’s one of those guys that I look at with some of the stuff he does, and I try to apply it in whichever way I can.”
Of course, Jones does not top 100 mph as a starter the same way Ohtani does, and he now needs to put it all together like the two-time-reigning National League MVP has. But modeling your stance and swing after one of the greatest left-handed hitters of all-time is a smart play.
Personally, I feel Jones’ stance and swing looks more like Aaron Judge batting left-handed, but I digress.
Jones is going to get plenty more at-bats with Judge and Paul Goldschmidt leaving for the World Baseball Classic. He can use those to try and make the opening-day roster.
Yankees’ Aaron Boone Sends Strong Message on Spencer Jones After 2nd Spring HR