After the Yankees’ 3-2 loss to the Mets on Saturday, an uncomfortable postgame conversation emerged in regard to the outfield defense in the ninth inning. Veteran Cody Bellinger approached Jasson Dominguez about the play that ended up giving the Mets the lead (and eventual win).

In short, it all just comes back to Dominguez’s below-average defense and lack of comfortability in left field. For as much as fans might prefer to convince themselves that the Martian has “improved” on that front because of how his bat has been making an impact, it’s just not the truth.

So far, Dominguez has been worth -0.3 dWAR , -5 Outs Above Average and -4 Fielding Run Value. And it’s not like those underlying metrics are telling a different story based on the eye test. He still looks lost and scattered when he’s tested in left field.

Saturday couldn’t have portrayed that better for the average viewer. In the top of the fourth inning, the Mets tied the game on an RBI single from Pete Alonso. The slugger ripped the ball into left field, and Dominguez took an incredibly bizarre angle that prevented him from making a good play on the liner.

He started running backwards diagonally instead of getting a better break to track the ball down while it was in the air. He let it drop, then couldn’t field it cleanly, and a run scored. Overall, it just seemed like a lack of instincts with nerves taking over.

Yankees have a continual problem with Jasson Dominguez’s defense

Would it have been a tough play? Absolutely. But the Yankees need to see the progression of Dominguez gradually working his way toward making those tough plays, and he’s yet to do so in 2025.

That was hardly the end of it, too. In what was another difficult one in the seventh, Dominguez couldn’t track down a fly ball off the bat of Tyrone Taylor that landed in the gap for a double. It was potentially a play worth diving for as Bellinger had him backed up pristinely, but instead Dominguez took an awkward leap and then couldn’t corral it off the wall.

Even if we wanted to give Dominguez a pass for the difficult outs, he’s still awkwardly fielding rather routine fly balls, stabbing his glove at them, as he did on two Juan Soto flyouts on Saturday.

Then, with the bases loaded in the ninth, Francisco Lindor popped out to left-center field. Both Dominguez and Bellinger converged on the ball, and Bellinger called him off. But because they were so close, Bellinger couldn’t get the positioning he needed to make the best possible throw home. He was a few seconds late and the game-winning run tagged up from third base to score.

But the problem wasn’t Dominguez necessarily crowding Bellinger’s space — it was the fact he didn’t make an aggressive enough move (or get the best positioning) to call off Bellinger on a play that was clearly the left fielder’s and not the center fielder’s.

One could argue this was a rather nitpicky situation. Bellinger was the one who was more out of position as he came to make the play, but there’s probably reason for that — because Dominguez can’t be trusted to make a sterling defensive play to save a game. Also, Bellinger shouldn’t have beaten Dominguez to that ball to get better positioning, especially with Lindor batting from the left side of the plate.

Dominguez now has almost three months of MLB experience in left field dating back to last season. He’s been getting regular reps with few interruptions in 2025. Yes, the best time to shake off the rust is early on in the year, but the rust is very much still there. So, behind the scenes, there’s no way the Yankees can be feeling that great about their former top prospect holding down left field when the games start to matter more and more.

And by the way … the offense? Those three home runs and seven RBI in that one game vs the Athletics have comprised a significant portion of his stats to date. His two other homers came in losing efforts. He’s really only had a couple of memorable offensive showings this year and is striking out at a 30% clip.

Thankfully, the Yankees are good and have enough time to let this settle with another two months of play, but everyone’s still wondering when they’ll see the best out of the slugger who was once compared to Mike Trout.