Catching up on some news that was set aside during the trade deadline frenzy, the Yankees announced yesterday that infielder Jeter Downs was released and signed with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball.
Downs, 26, wasn’t a Yankee for very long. He was claimed off waivers from the Nationals in December, with the Yankees then passing him through waivers unclaimed in January. He didn’t have the right to elect free agency at that time and has been in the Yankees’ system in a non-roster capacity since then.
He has been having a decent year at Triple-A. In 69 games for Scranton Wilkes-Barre, he hit 10 home runs and slashed .264/.360/.498 for a wRC+ of 117. He also stole 15 bases while bouncing between second base, third base and shortstop.
Despite those decent numbers, he never got called up to the majors even though the Yankees have had plenty of infield challenges. Players like Gleyber Torres, DJ LeMahieu and Oswaldo Cabrera have had disappointing seasons so far and Jon Berti has been on the injured list for most of the year. But the club never felt compelled to call upon Downs and eventually acquired Jazz Chisholm from the Marlins and plugged him onto their roster. Since he was fairly blocked from getting any playing time in the Bronx, he will instead go overseas to see if this opportunity will work out for him.
Downs was once a top 100 prospect during his time in the Dodgers’ system, before being traded to the Red Sox in the now-infamous 2020 deal that sent Mookie Betts and David Price to Los Angeles. He struggled to live up to the hype in the subsequent seasons, hitting .200/.309/.365 in the minors over the 2021-23 campaigns. He was only given brief looks in the majors, producing a line of .182/.260/.273 in 50 plate appearances. He went from the Red Sox to the Nationals on waivers in December of 2022 but then the Yankees got him off waivers a year later, as mentioned.
If he fares well in Japan, he could intrigue teams based his past. He hit .267/.359/.458 in the minors from 2017 to 2019, though mostly at the lower levels, with only 12 games above High-A in that time. But he has the former prospect pedigree and was performing well in Triple-A this year. A nice run with the Hawks could perhaps lead the way to a return to the majors down the line, especially since he’s still only 26 years old.
he’ll come back and become next derek jeter
I give this response a thumbs Downs.
He’ll come back and become the next Kelly Downs.
He won’t even be Hugh Downs.
Or maybe the next Churchill Downs.
More like the next Derby Downs. classic example of huge hype. Boston fell for it, gave away Mookie betts for what has ended up (thankfully) Conner Wong, who was supposed to be the pretty much throw in in the deal.
Doogie ended up being an average player, nothing special and Downs never did squat above A ball.
Most overrated word In sports…. POTENTIAL!!
And, perhaps, overused. Potential and $2.00 gets you a coffee at Starbucks.
$2.00????? Which Starbucks do you go to??? I want to go there too. Lol
So true… but where can I get that $2 Starbucks coffee!!! LOL!!!
Jeter definitely did not live up to his name sake, unless of course we are talking about shawn JETER or kelly DOWNS, then his batting line is about on par…
He wasn’t even as good as Johnny Jeter.
Who would’ve ever thought that the Yankees would let Jeter go?
Love Devers, but Boston’s refusal to pay and keep Betts will forever be a stain on this organization.
I agree! And we should have never taken a prospect called JETER in the trade. It was bad enough losing Betts but adding a prospect clearly named after a Yankee was a further insult to the fan base!
Yup. Devers has played eight seasons. The fWAR below is for the first eight MLB seasons of each player’s career:
THIRD BASE
Mike Lowell – 14.2
Brooks Robinson – 15.1
Bill Mueller – 19.4
DEVERS – 22.7
Adrian Beltre – 26.6
Paul Molitor – 27.4
David Wright – 34.3
Scott Rolen – 36.7
Evan Longoria – 43.7
Mike Schmidt – 50.3
Wade Boggs – 60.2
OUTFIELD
Trot Nixon – 17.9
Dewey – 23.4
Johnny Damon – 24.5
Ellsbury – 24.9
Roberto Clemente – 24.9
Manny – 30.0
Reggie Jackson – 41.7
Ichiro – 46.4
Yaz – 47.9
BETTS – 49.8
Rickey Henderson – 50.4
Willie Mays – 50.8
Ted Williams – 71.5
MIDDLE INFIELD
Biggio – 29.7
Derek Jeter – 36.9
Pedroia – 38.0
Nomar – 41.3
BETTS – 49.8
Devers is young and started slow. He might squeak into the HOF as a third-rate inductee. He’s not far behind where Beltre was, and he’s younger. But he’ll never be the defender Beltre was, so even if he keeps hitting I bet he’ll wind up closer to Rolen/Wright than to Beltre/Boggs.
But barring a career ending injury, Betts is a first ballot HOF. He’s far better than Jeter, and better than Nomar. His trajectory has him closing in on some real inner circle guys—Yaz, Mays. He might not make it to that top tier, but he’s well on his way.
Of course, the first eight years aren’t necessarily representative. Longoria started hot. Clemente started cold. But overall, I think it’s clear Betts is an entirely higher class of player than Devers
I didn’t realize Boggs was so much ahead of the pack. His fWAR would be even higher if he had decided to hit for power which he had plenty of.
I guess you just proved the flaw in the war stat. There is no way Betts is any where near Mays first 8 years in the majors.
Mays was certainly better than Betts over those first eight seasons, but not by a whole lot. Mays was four years younger when he started than Mookie, and Mays’ first three seasons were pretty average. After eight, their slash lines are pretty even, with Mays just a little better. WAR adjusts for era and for park. So it’s not really that far fetched they’d be close.
After eleven seasons (Mookie’s full career so far), Mays had 76.8 and Mookie 68.2, so Mays is pulling ahead.
Mays ended his career with 156 — fifth highest ever, and third among position players — so it’s unlikely Mookie will be able to keep up. Particularly since Mays played for 23 seasons; Mookie would have to play to age 44 to match that. He’s probably more on track to be about on par with Yaz, around 100 WAR for his career unless it’s derailed.
I hope you weren’t including the age 17 year added were Mays only played a few games in the negro leagues. Otherwise their slash lines aren’t even close. Mays has an OPS almost hundred points higher almost every year and is regarded as the best outfielder in the history of the game. Betts is a very good player but isn’t even close to being one of the all time greats of the game. There is no way they could accurately give old time players WAR grades on defense. Betts stats will be no way near Mays.
Defensive WAR is not precise for the old-timers but we know the number of balls in play, whether they were fly balls or ground balls, assists and put outs. There’s a large enough data-set through decades to know roughly how many balls in play are hit to which position on average, and can then infer about how many plays a player at their given position should have made that year.
It’s not perfect and no one should be claiming it is. However in broad strokes, we can be pretty confident that Ozzie Smith and Brooks Robinson were incredible fielders and that some guys who may have passed the eye test should have never been allowed to put on a glove.
Stat nerds also understand that modern WAR metrics aren’t an entirely accurate measurement of overall performance. There’s a lot of factors that happen in a game that can’t be measured with just a simple metric like that. If you understand the base components that go into advanced metrics like WAR, and the point of these advanced metrics, you’ll see that it’s not the stat nerds making crap up, It’s uninformed people misunderstanding what the data is trying to represent in the first place.
What is the data trying to represent? Boggs was best player in baseball over his first eight years? Betts was as good as Mays? A person with a half an ounce of common sense just looking at their numbers and knowing how each was defensively knows that it isn’t remotely true. So tell who is uninformed?
That’s because “first 8 years” is very misleading. Boggs was a rookie at 24, Beltre at 19. If you’re looking at career predictors, age comparisons are much better.
The flaw is in comparing the first 8 years. Mays “first year” was a few at bats as a 17 year old in the Negro Leagues, and he was injured for most of his third year. The comparison is basically 8 full years of Boggs vs. 6.2 Mays years. WAR has many problems, but this comparison didn’;t “prove” anything.
I remember interviews where Boggs talked about hitting the top half of the ball to generate topspin. He had good enough eyes to focus on hitting the top half of the baseball. Scary good. Had he decided he wanted to hit homers, he certainly could have.
no it won’t, Betts refused to sign a contract cause he didn’t want to stay in Boston, and claimed to want to make it to test free agency and that he was fine going year by year through his arbitration years, they can’t make him sign a contract
In 2022, Betts stated that the Red Sox never offered him 10/$300MM as the media widely reported. He would’ve stayed in Boston if they had matched the Dodgers’ contract offer. They didn’t want to give to Betts what he wanted so he shut down negotiations and Bloom decided to trade him with Price to retool.
Betts didn’t want to be in Boston and turned down $300 million for 10 years. This was not a case of Boston refusing to pay, but of a player rejecting the offer.
I agree Rsox….both Betts and Price were done and there was nothing ownership could do to change it.
exactly right, if anyone comes out looking bad in that situation it’s mookie, he said until they traded him he wanted to test free agency, so they traded him for some prospects who at the time looked promising, as they CANNOT just let him walk with for nothing, and then he proves he is a liar by signing an extension pretty shortly after the trade, If I remember correctly it was before the next season(his first in LA) even started, Mookie Betts is the one who looks bad not the Sox, as I said before they can’t make him sign a new contract, its ridiculous to blame the. organization
@Ifcredsox
Correct. Mookie signed his extension with the Dodgers the day before the 2020 season finally started and never got close to free agency. He played the Red Sox fan base to save face but he had zero intention of ever playing for the Sox again once his contract was over. Hindsight says no matter what the return anything was better than the nothing they would have gotten when he left as a free agent
Yup. Devers has played eight seasons. The fWAR below is for the first eight MLB seasons of each player’s career:
THIRD BASE
Mike Lowell – 14.2
Brooks Robinson – 15.1
Bill Mueller – 19.4
DEVERS – 22.7
Adrian Beltre – 26.6
Paul Molitor – 27.4
David Wright – 34.3
Scott Rolen – 36.7
Evan Longoria – 43.7
Mike Schmidt – 50.3
Wade Boggs – 60.2
OUTFIELD
Trot Nixon – 17.9
Dewey – 23.4
Johnny Damon – 24.5
Ellsbury – 24.9
Roberto Clemente – 24.9
Manny – 30.0
Reggie Jackson – 41.7
Ichiro – 46.4
Yaz – 47.9
BETTS – 49.8
Rickey Henderson – 50.4
Willie Mays – 50.8
Ted Williams – 71.5
MIDDLE INFIELD
Biggio – 29.7
Derek Jeter – 36.9
Pedroia – 38.0
Nomar – 41.3
BETTS – 49.8
Devers is young and started slow. He might squeak into the HOF as a third-rate inductee. He’s not far behind where Beltre was, and he’s younger. But he’ll never be the defender Beltre was, so even if he keeps hitting I bet he’ll wind up closer to Rolen/Wright than to Beltre/Boggs.
But barring a career ending injury, Betts is a first ballot HOF. He’s far better than Jeter, and better than Nomar. His trajectory has him closing in on some real inner circle guys—Yaz, Mays. He might not make it to that top tier, but he’s well on his way.
Of course, the first eight years aren’t necessarily representative. Longoria started hot. Clemente started cold. But overall, I think it’s clear Betts is an entirely higher class of player than Devers.
That might be true, but Mookie turned down 10 years 300 million before 300 million dollar contracts were a thing. He didn’t want to be in Boston, he signed an extension during the season with LA and never seen free agency. He wasn’t going to do that in Boston. Ortiz and Pedro embraced the attention and fans, it’s not for everyone.
Ugh. Here we go again. Read slowly. Betts refused to negotiate with Boston. He openly stated he was not going to talk contract and would test the free agent market. Boston had no choice but to get something for him. If anything, the Red Sox pulled the trigger a bit early and didn’t shop him long enough to hopefully get a better offer. Plus Betts hated Boston and, once he miraculously signed an extension with the Dodgers, referred to Boston as a ‘racist city’.
If I’m not mistaken wasn’t 2019 Kyrie Irving’s first year with the Celtics? Some racist things happened then and I think it rubbed Mookie the wrong way before the season started. Then there was the Eck vs Price spat that kinda sealed the deal he wanted gone.
Gota root 4the AAAA guys.
JETER signs with NPB team!!
Jeter Downs played TWELVE GAMES in AA, and then lost his entire age 21 developmental year (COVID). Obviously, COVID had all sorts of impacts, but it’s hard not to imagine an alternate world where Downs doesn’t essentially jump from hi A to AAA after a full year off from facing live game pitching.
That’s the reason he couldn’t cut it?
We have no way of knowing that, but it didn’t help.
Rhetorical question, Jeter Downs was never going to live up to expectations based on his play. Stop it.
I didn’t say he would have; as we all know, lots and lots of prospects don’t make it.
If *any* top 100 prospect got jumped two levels in 2025 after missing all of 2024, it would raise a lot of eyebrows around the game. All I’m saying. Granted, he wasn’t the only one to lose 2020 development and some prospects succeeded despite that fact.
Nice work there Chaim!
Betts was low balled by the Red Sox. LA negotiated and met him in the middle. Henry got what he deserved. The fans did not. Keep the faith!
The Sox made a reasonably generous offer. Betts turned it down and got a better one. Would he have stayed in Boston if they had made the same offer LAD made? I think so, but it’s hard to know.
When it all went down, I was disappointed but understood why the Sox decided that the price was too high for the risk. Look how Mike Trout has crippled the Angels and provides maybe 75% the production they hoped for.
But as Betts’ contract plays out, it’s starting to look like the Sox should have gone the extra mile. If Mookie ends his career with close to 100 WAR — which looks increasingly likely — he could have been an immortal Boston legend, along side Williams and Yaz. Instead, he’s going to have the same legacy in Boston as Boggs or Fisk — one of our greats who left on a sour note.
Red Sox were initially to get Bruwdar Graterol in the Betts deal (it was a 3-way with the Twins involving Kenta Maeda) but did not like the medical reports on him. They insisted on another player and the Dodgers reluctantly included uber-prospect Jeter Downs instead, who they had just gotten with Homer Bailey in the Kemp/Puig/Wood dump.
Verdugo andJeter Downs were the centerpiece of the deal. The replacement for Graterol in the deal was Connor Wong. It was originally going to be Verdugo, Downs, and Graterol, but after the Sox turned down Graterol in the deal, Wong was inserted in his place. A good choice, in hindsight.
He’s Downs with NPB
Ironically Fukuoka is also John Fishers AOL screen name
The bright side for Jeter is that he has a better chance to win a championship.
I wish he was given a chance like Pereza or Vivas to replace DJL. I’m still upset the Yankees gave away a solid catcher to the Mets for nothing