Will the Yankees call up Jasson Dominguez when MLB rosters expand on Sept. 1?
The Yankees’ Jasson Dominguez during spring training. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
In the olden days – way back in 2019 — MLB teams were allowed to expand their rosters to as many as 40 players on Sept. 1.
September call-ups were a big deal.
But starting in 2020, MLB decided to limit the call-ups to two, and to limit the number of pitchers on the 28-man September roster to 14.
So are September call-ups not a big deal anymore? For the Yankees, this Sept. 1, they kind of are.
No discussion of September call-ups for the Yankees would be complete without mentioning Jasson Dominguez.
Dominguez has played one game for the Yankees this season as he returned from Tommy John surgery. It was on Aug. 18 in the Little League Classic in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, against Detroit.
Called up only for that special-event day as the “27th man,” Dominguez hardly looked ready for prime time. He went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and hesitated in throwing home on Parker Meadows’ 10th-inning walk-off single to left.
Dominguez went back to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and started to rake, getting 13 hits in his next 33 at-bats. Going into Thursday, the 21-year-old switch-hitter was batting .309 with eight homers and an .855 OPS in the minors.
A rival scout who is assigned to the Yankees system recently saw Dominguez during his coverage of Scranton.
“He is ready to go back,” the scout told Newsday. “Saw flashes of everything you want to see. He ran well, hit the ball out of the park. Did not defend as well as I have seen in the past. But he’s ready.”
But are the Yankees ready to call Dominguez back up if they don’t see “a lane” – to use a Brian Cashman phrase – to give him regular playing time. Probably not.
Leftfielder Alex Verdugo has picked it up of late after a summer of struggles. After going 1-for-4 in the Yankees’ 5-2 loss to the Nationals on Wednesday, Verdugo has eight hits in his last 20 at-bats.
There’s no doubting the jolt “Doogie” gives the Yankees at the bottom of the order when he is getting extra-base hits and crashing into outfield walls face-first (without somehow getting seriously injured, as he did on Monday).
But Verdugo’s season totals (.234, 11 HRs, .655 OPS) are below average for an everyday player.
In losing two of three to the Nationals, the Yankees went 1-for-26 with runners in scoring position. They could use Dominguez. But he’s unlikely to join them on Sunday.
The Yankees will have to decide which Triple-A position player will join the roster. The easiest move would be to activate Jon Berti, who has been out since May 25 with a left calf strain and is rehabbing with Double-A Somerset. Or they could call up Oswald Peraza.
Neither is a difference-maker like Dominguez could be.
On the pitching side, the Yankees have scads of options among their rehabbing hurlers (assuming they are not called up before Sunday) in Luis Gil, Clarke Schmidt, Nick Burdi, Lou Trivino, Ian Hamilton, Scott Effross and Cody Poteet. Some of those pitchers will not be ready by Sunday.
The sheer volume of arms the Yankees have eventually, they hope, coming back from injury could make the entire month of September a juggling act for Cashman and Aaron Boone. They could potentially turn over a good chunk of their bullpen in addition to deciding on whether Schmidt or Gil come back as starters or relievers.
The good news for the Yankees’ decision-makers – if you could call it that – is that not every member of their current pitching staff is a must-keep.
Will Warren likely will be heading back to Triple-A after he starts against St. Louis on Saturday. Phil Bickford has already been designated for assignment once by the Yankees. Tim Mayza is hardly a lock to keep a roster spot.
Before 2020, the Yankees could have just called up six or seven pitchers and had a mini-tryout camp in September to see who would make it onto their probable postseason roster.
The change from 40 to 28 was made for a good reason: to not have managers make a farce of September games by using 10 or 11 relievers per game because they could, and to not play in September with vastly different rules than you had from April-August.
Boone recently said that he agrees with the change for the good of the game. Something tells us he might wish that – for this season alone and for the good of the Yankees – MLB went back to letting teams expand the roster all the way to 40.
With Erik Boland
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.