After Summer Surge, Spencer Jones Has Returned To Earth

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Spencer Jones (Mike Janes/Four Seam Images)

If a six-week summer stretch showed everyone why Spencer Jones remains a fascinating prospect, then the six weeks since then have offered a reminder about why he’s also far from a sure bet.

From mid June through the end of July, Jones hit 18 home runs in 32 games while slashing .388/.457/.860. It made the 24-year-old Yankees outfield prospect one of the big stories in baseball in the lead-up to the trade deadline. New York ended up holding on to Jones, and since August 1, Jones’ season has seen a return to the issues that have long slowed his development.

In the 38 games from Aug. 1 to now, Jones has hit four home runs while posting a .190/.253/.327 slash line. Much more worryingly, he’s striking out 43.8% of the time while walking just 6.8% of the time. Jones has long been a three true outcomes hitter, but since the start of August, he’s only putting the ball in play in half of his plate appearances.

During Jones’ hot stretch in June and July, he was making more contact and reaping the rewards that came with it—including a return to the Top 100 Prospects list. But now that the strikeout problems have returned, he’s once again struggling to hit.

Overall, Jones’ season has been a step forward from last year. But his Triple-A numbers (.269/.333/.547 with a 36.7% strikeout rate) are now only “good” rather than exceptional. This is a season that Jones can build on going into 2026, but his potentially career-derailing strikeout rate remains a real worry.

Comparing Jones’ Strikeout Rates

So, what’s changed between Jones’ hot streak and his recent cold streak?

Luck plays a small part. Jones has homered on four of the past 45 balls (8.8%) he’s hit in the air. Five more of those long fly balls were caught on the warning track. With a bit of favorable wind, Jones could have two or three more homers, which would improve his sagging power production.

For comparison’s sake, Jones homered on 18 of 61 balls he hit in the air (29.5%) during his mid-summer hot streak, with only three of those balls being reeled in on the warning track.

Bad luck is one thing, but mainly, Jones isn’t making enough contact for it to matter. Below, you can see Jones’ 14-day rolling strikeout rate for the 2025 season. I’ve made a few of these types of charts over the years—most notably when the Reds’ Elly De La Cruz was trying to tame his own strikeout rate in the minors—but never before has there been a reason to include a 60% strikeout rate on a chart.

The flat stretch in May is when Jones spent much of the month on the injured list. When he was on the field, we see that his strikeout rate fell into the low 20% range in late July, which was when he was at the peak of his powers. That drop in Ks helped earn Jones a promotion to Triple-A, after which he continued making much more contact for a spell. The hope was that Jones had made a clear and discernible improvement that might also be sustainable.

Take out the six-week slugfest from June and July, and Jones’ strikeout rate now more resembles his 2024 numbers. In hindsight, that hot stretch now seems more like the outlier than his recent struggles.

The MLB success rate of MiLB hitters with a 31% or higher strikeout rate is extremely low. Jones’ 32.5% career strikeout rate is higher than all but one hitter in the 21st century who has reached 500+ MLB plate appearances—Joey Gallo.

How Pitchers Are Attacking Jones

It appears that, in August, Triple-A pitchers realized that any time they throw Jones a fastball, they are doing him a favor. During his hot streak, Jones was seeing fastballs 60% of the time. He hit .362/.438/.855 against those fastballs, according to Synergy Sports data.

Since Aug. 1, the fastball rate against Jones has dipped to 52%. And what has replaced those pitches? Sliders and sweepers.

Jones saw sliders and sweepers 14% of the time when he was on a roll. Now, he’s seeing them 20% of the time. Jones’ whiff rate on sliders since Aug. 1 is 74% and against sweepers, it’s 58%. He’s also seeing more changeups (from 13% to 17%) and whiffing on 55% of the ones he swings at.

Jones is still hitting .281/.373/.562 against fastballs since Aug. 1, with a 36% whiff rate. But he’s hitting .108/.141/.135 with a 59% whiff rate on everything other than fastballs.

It should be noted that Jones was a better hitter against breaking balls and off-speed pitches during his hot streak, as well. He slashed .424/.486/.881 against those pitches during that impressive six-week stretch, and he had a sustainable 40% whiff rate. He was getting ahead in counts more often and benefitting from it greatly.

But what he’s done since Aug. 1 tracks with what Jones did in 2024. According to Synergy Sports data, he’s hit .298/.373/.543 against fastballs that season and .224/.270/.372 against breaking balls and offspeed offerings. But in 2024, he saw fastballs only 48% of the time.

Where Jones Goes From Here

Jones is only 24, and there’s long been a scouting axiom that taller players (Jones is 6-foot-7) take longer to develop. When the 6-foot-8 Aaron Judge was 24, he was hitting .270/.366/.489 in Triple-A and posted a .179/.263/.345 line in a 27-game MLB debut. It wasn’t until his age-25 season that Judge slugged .500 for the first time as a pro—something he did by hitting 52 home runs and winning the 2017 American League Rookie of the Year Award.

No one should expect Jones to have anything like Judge’s age-25 season. Reaching the majors next season would be a big step on its own.

This year has been a big step forward for Jones, even if it’s included a modest start and awful ending sandwiched around one of the best six-week hitting stretches the minors has seen this century. But as he heads into the offseason, Jones’ late-season struggles are a reminder of all the work he has left to do.