One of the more encouraging parts of the New York Yankees' 2026 season was Spencer Jones' gradual improvement .
The 25-year-old rookie outfielder was called up and sent down three separate times from May to July before getting a fourth call-up on July 26. Jones stayed with the Bronx Bombers for the rest of the season, hitting .254 with nine home runs, a .771 OPS, and 113 wRC+ in 55 games.
Even with his steady adaptation to MLB pitching, not every Yankee fan is convinced that Jones is ready to be an everyday player. There are still causes for concern regarding Jones, most notably his extreme strikeout rate and rough outfield defense. With Heliot Ramos already on the roster and a slew of right-handed hitting outfielders in free agency , one path the Yankees can take is to platoon the lefty-hitting Jones with a right-handed batter to hone his skills.
However, it is far more valuable for the Yankees to use Jones as an everyday player instead of a rotating platoon outfielder.
The statistics alone throw out any logic of using Jones as a platoon bat. Despite being a left-handed batter, he put up extreme reverse splits, struggling against righties and mashing lefties .
In 230 plate appearances against right-handers, Jones hit just .208/.279/.367 while striking out at a staggering 37.8% rate, per FanGraphs. But in 59 plate appearances against southpaws, he thrived with a .389/.441/.667 slash line and eight extra-base hits, alongside a .473 wOBA.
Lefty-lefty matchups are often considered more difficult compared to righty-righty matchups, yet Jones looked much more comfortable in that perceived tougher matchup.
This significantly complicates a lefty-righty platoon, as it would likely involve using two left-handed batters instead of one from each side of the plate. Additionally, while it is more common to find right-handed batters with reverse splits than left-handed reverse-split hitters, a reverse-split platoon is much more difficult to use compared to a traditional platoon and would theoretically be less effective.
Beyond the stats, though, it also makes far more sense for the Yankees to avoid platooning Jones from a developmental standpoint. Given that right-handed pitchers are more common across baseball than left-handers, Jones will naturally face righties more often when playing every day. This, in turn, gives him more opportunities to improve against righties.
At the same time, platooning Jones against left-handed pitching can easily backfire. He still struck out in 30.5% of his plate appearances against southpaws, while his walk rate (6.8%) and hard-hit rate (41.7%) were lower than his rates against righties (9.1% walk rate, 57.4% hard-hit rate).
Jones' expected stats vs. lefties included a .328 xBA, .554 xSLG, and .404 xwOBA; all of those are still very strong but noticeably lower than the actual stats, which is an indicator of regression.
Because of their extremes, the Yankees should recognize Jones' reverse splits as an unsustainable anomaly. Jones has room to improve offensively regardless of which side the opposing pitcher throws from, and the best way for him to improve his at-bats is to play every day.
Therefore, being used as a platoon bat is counterintuitive to his development into a more well-rounded hitter.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/mlb/yankees/onsi as Yankees Must Avoid Making Risky Spencer Jones Mistake Next Season .
