Takeaways on Yankees’ minor-league rosters: Latest on Jasson Dominguez, Anthony Volpe, Anthony Seigler, more

Yankees center fielder prospect Jasson Dominguez (right) will be back in Low-A for the start of the 2022 season playing for Tampa Tarpons manager Rachel Balkovec (middle), while catcher Austin Wells (left) will begin the season with the High-A Hudson Valley Renegades.
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TAMPA — One of the baseball lockout ramifications was pushing back the start of the regular season a few days, and that will lead to the Triple-A season starting before the majors. That’ll be a first.

Opening Day for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, top farm club for the Yankees, is Tuesday night in Syracuse. Their three other full-season minor-league rungs – the Low-A Tampa Tarpons, High-A Hudson Valley Renegades and Double-A Somerset Patriots – are scheduled to begin play on Friday, the day the Yankees’ scheduled opener at Yankee Stadium against the Red Sox.

This change from the norm led to minor league rosters being set before spring training ended, and the Yankees released theirs on Monday.

Somerset made out best with seven of the Yankees’ top 30 prospects in MLB Pipeline’s rankings: Anthony Volpe (No. 1); LHP Ken Waldichuk (No. 6); RHP Randy Vasquez (No. 11); RHP Luis Medina (No. 12); CF Brandon Lockridge (No. 18); C Josh Breaux (No. 26) and OF Elijah Dunham (No. 27).

Assuming rookies Clarke Schmidt, JP Sears and Ron Marinaccio make the Yankees’ Opening Day roster, six of the top 30 will start with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre: SS Oswald Peraza (No. 2); RHP Hayden Wesneski (No. 8); RHP Luis Gil (No. 10); INF Oswaldo Cabrera (No. 14); RHP Deivi Garcia (No. 29) and CF Estevan Florial (No. 30).

Five of the top 30 will play for Hudson Valley: C Austin Wells (No. 4); SS Trey Sweeney (No. 5), CF Everson Pereira (No. 11); RHP Beck Way (No. 22) and 2B Cooper Bowman (No. 25).

Tampa’s roster only has two ranked prospects: CF Jasson Dominguez (No. 3) and C Antonio Gomez (No. 19).

Most of the other top 30 will start the year in extended spring training or at the Yankees’ complex in the D.R.

Here are a few takeaways:

-- Volpe probably will spend most or all of the season playing close to home with Somerset because Peraza will be in Triple-A. A late-season promotion to Scranton for Volpe seems to be the best bet at this point.

-- Dominguez is back with Tampa after spending most of last season there, and the switch-hitting Dominican might be there for most of 2022. This is no indication that he’s not panning out or anything negative. On the contrary, Dominguez impressively put up decent numbers last season playing Low-A as a 19-year-old.

-- Dominguez has a very good relationship with trend-setting Tampa manager Rachel Balkovec. They’ll be together this year and it wouldn’t be surprising if both start next season in Hudson Valley and then the following year in Somerset. Dominguez could change the script for both though, because he has the talent to make a faster climb up the organizational ladder.

-- Wells is back in High-A instead of starting out in Double-A because Breaux will be in Somerset and the Yankees want their two best catching prospects getting a lot of reps behind the plate. Both may hit their way to the big leagues, but they need to improve their receiving if they’re going to catch there.

-- The Yankees are challenging 2021 first-round pick Sweeney, who will be open the season as Hudson Valley’s starting shortstop with only 32 games on his pro resume, the first three in rookie ball and then 29 in Low-A. His six homers in 115 at-bats with Tampa last season probably convinced the Yankees that he’d at least be able to hold his own in High-A at age 21.

-- Pereira is back with Hudson Valley after hitting 14 homers in 27 games there late last season. Why not Double-A? The center fielder is still the youngest Renegades player at 21. He played his way from rookie ball to Low-A to High-A last season, so another jump at some point this season certainly seems realistic.

-- Yankees 2018 first-round pick Anthony Seigler is out of the prospect rankings and starting the season in Low-A after being in High-A last season when he was healthy. Thus far, Seigler has been a big disappointment. He’s only played 95 games in three seasons due to injuries and the lost COVID year, plus he’s just a career .217 hitter.

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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com.

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