September Call Ups. Are They Happening For Spencer Jones?

It’s Labor Day and the Yankees are off. So, I guess I don’t have to worry about strategically scheduling my grilling time to miss as little as possible. Now that the calendar has flipped to September the Yankees have been doing their own strategic planning for call ups. This year, it feels much less dramatic because the moves the Yankees are likely to make feel more obvious.

I do kind of miss the old days. Before 2020, teams could add anyone on their protected 40-man roster for September call-ups, but that changed after teams started loading up on some pitchers and it became a hot topic. Now teams get to add two more players and expand to a 28-man roster. It certainly isn’t quite as exciting but it does force teams to be more strategic.

I feel like the Yankees moves this year are less sexy compared to other teams. One call up is obvious, and that will be Ryan Yarbrough, who finished his rehab assignment recently and returned to the clubhouse on Friday. He will be available for a long relief role against Houston on Tuesday. He will give the Yankees the extra arm that they will want for the last leg of the regular season. Hell, it’s an arm we will need to make the last push.

The other call up is not as obvious. The Yankees will need a position player, and I have seen three names floating around social media. The Yankees will either activate outfielder Austin Slater from the injured list or give another call-up to familiar face rookie catcher J.C. Escarra. Slater has been out since August 5th with a hamstring sprain but began a rehab assignment on Friday. He was scheduled for another game yesterday and will likely get a third game on Tuesday before the Yankees make a decision on who gets the call.

Ideally, the Yankees want Slater’s right-handed bat for corner outfield starts against left-handed pitching and pinch-hitting, so if Escarra does get the call up it will probably only be temporary until the Yankees feel Slater is ready for the call up. I do like that Slater can rake against lefties, that’s always nice to have. Interesting scenario here, the Yankees are looking for outfield help….but the buzz isn’t all about Spencer Jones.

So why are the Yankees considering Slater and not Jones? I think there are a lot of factors. One thing that stands out to me though is the Yankees acquired Slater when Aaron Judge was injured. They needed the additional support and he could fill in temporarily. Jones on the other hand was recently promoted to Triple-A. The first three weeks, he went on a tear. Jones had a .402 BA, slugged 13 home runs and dropped his strikeout rate to 25.5 percent. It’s a big reason why the Yankees held onto him at the deadline instead of trading him. They saw more upside to keeping him instead of trading for another big name. Since then, in the last month he has struggled a lot at the plate. His batting average has dropped to .178, he has only hit three home runs and his strike out rate has ballooned back up to 35.8 percent. Jones just hasn’t been able to be consistent and put it all together. It’s been a concern of mine for a while now.

So it doesn’t sound like Jones is in the consideration for a September call-up. Some fans probably won’t be happy with that but….the Yankees have made some ground in the AL East. They have a lot of work to do still and I think Jones is just too much of a gamble right now.