trending news :Spencer Jones demolishes Spring Breakout home run as hot mic catches Yankees teammate…….
As one Yankees Spring Breakout teammate yelled on Spencer Jones’ way back to the dugout (it appeared to be Roc Riggio?), “That’s how you show up!”
Jones certainly did, relishing the top prospect showcase against the Toronto Blue Jays on Saturday afternoon and making an immediate impact after being demoted from big-league camp.
The Yankees made a powerful statement this offseason when they held strong and kept Jones in their farm, despite overtures from the Milwaukee Brewers (Corbin Burnes) and Chicago White Sox (Dylan Cease).
Jones? He countered with a pretty powerful statement in the second AB of Spring Breakout, too, punishing his second homer of camp. Ironically — and appropriately — he also mashed a dinger in his first appearance of the spring in late February, a 470-foot blast that might’ve been knocked out of the air by the homer he struck today.
Jones waited on a slow breaker from Adam Macko and detonated; he impacted this baseball at 106.5 miles per hour, giving skeptical observers a pretty clear lesson in why exit velocity can be important (and what, exactly, big league exit velo looks like).
While Jones gets high marks for showing up (and, if he cuts down the whiffs this summer, he’ll rise up top prospect lists nationally), there are plenty of other Yankees prospects in this game who fans should take note of. The Daily News’ Gary Phillips tried an exercise on Saturday where Yankees staffers had to praise prospects in this contest and couldn’t pick Jones; much like the game itself, this allowed noteworthy young players like Caleb Durbin and starting pitcher Brock Selvidge to get some shine.
