Yankee Youngsters to Start the Season in Force
You can call them the core four of a sort. The New York Yankees are leaving camp to begin the 2025 season with the largest infusion of youth not seen since 1984. The flip side to injury issues exposes the fresh shine of opportunities. Ben Rice, Jasson Dominguez, Will Warren and J.C. Escarra have grasped the brass rings and these are truly precious.
The spring has opened eyes to four players who were afterthoughts or not guaranteed to make the big club. All but Escarra have had a cup of coffee in the Majors. The performances of all four in this spring season made them all stand out for different reasons. The starting lineup tomorrow will boast three of these giving an indication of the Yankees’ newly- won faith in their minor league development of ready-made talent.
We start with Jasson Dominguez, who according to MLB.com is the Yankees’ number one prospect. The bat showed itself off as it did in the small sample size that was witnessed in 2023. It is his work in the field, particularly the difficult left field area, that he struggled. It threatened to change the narrative for this young talent. However, once he started hitting the ball to all fields and showed off the speed of his foot, those negatives suddenly disappeared, and Dominguez found his lane and will be starting in left field.
Will Warren pitched at the end of last season and did not show any hints of the promise that was predicted for him. Yet, when he returned in the spring there was a noticeable change in the command and precision of his pitches. He held to a near 1.00 ERA for most of the spring before leveling off. Despite this, he has been slotted into the starting staff as the fourth starter. Warren was not surprised. “I came into camp with that as the goal,” he explained, “To hear it from Boone’s mouth was super exciting.”
Ben Rice has been a revelation for a second time. The lefty-swinging catcher-first baseman made a brief impact in 2024 in replacing Anthony Rizzo. The high-water mark was a three-home run performance against the Boston Red Sox. Rice regressed once the league figured him out. However, this spring he came in more solidly muscled, and throughout the Grapefruit League, Rice has been making solid contact consistently to such a degree that the Yankees admitted that they see him as a middle-of-the-lineup bat. Rice has smacked out five home runs and nine RBIs and hit .260 with many other balls scorched but finding gloves. He certainly caught Boone’s attention. “He’s banging,” Aaron pointed out, “He’s been killing the ball.” Rice has been projected to start at DH.
The best story is JC Escarra who forced the Yankees to notice him. He batted .333 with three home runs and eight RBIs in 17 spring games. The 29-year-old Cuban American has come a long way from a 15th-round pick of the Baltimore Orioles to have played in all levels of the Minors, the winter leagues in Mexico and Puerto Rico. He participated in the 2024 Caribbean Series for Caguas. As a Yankee J.C. has been a powerful hitter that so impressed the Yankees that they added him to the 40-man roster to prevent him from being grabbed in minor league free agency. As a result of his spring performance, Escarra is now the backup catcher to Austin Wells on the main roster. If the New York Yankees perform as well in 2025 as they did a year ago, the youngsters who were promoted will be a primary reason.
