When a ballplayer is so talented that the nickname “El Marciano” (“The Martian”) is bestowed before he has even touched a professional field, there are going to be a lot of high hopes. Given the nickname during his time on the Dominican Republic baseball circuit, Jasson Domínguez has had eyes on him from a very young age and was prepared for all the expectations that have come his way. What Domínguez couldn’t possibly have foreseen was the whirlwind that awaited him at the end of August and into the beginning of September.

After a promotion to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre from Double-A Somerset on Aug. 22, Domínguez would get the call to The Show just 10 days later. In eight games with the Yankees, The Martian launched four homers into orbit, but his season crashed to a halt due to a UCL tear in his right elbow, an injury that required Tommy John surgery. It was a devastating way to end the year for Domínguez, who was having one of the most exciting and successful stretches in his young career after powering through one of his worst.

From Opening Day in Somerset, and well into the dog days of summer, Domínguez struggled at the plate, batting .226 through the first four months of the season. Having entered 2023 as one of the top prospects in baseball, Domínguez knew that he wasn’t producing up to the level of play anyone expected of him.

“I was scared,” Domínguez says. “I thought I was going to finish the year in Somerset because I was really bad. At that time, my only goal was to move up to Triple-A.”

But the tough stretch gave Domínguez the chance to add a new chapter to his narrative. Everyone knew that Domínguez had the tools to make it to the Majors eventually, but as he worked his way out of the slump, he proved that he is more than just a talented ballplayer. In his time around the Dominican Republic’s baseball scene, he had witnessed gifted players who never made it anywhere due to their lack of work ethic -- cautionary tales that Domínguez would never allow to become part of his own story.

“I’m the guy that likes to work. I go hard,” Domínguez says. “Baseball has a lot of ups and downs, but one thing for sure, if I have a bad moment, one thing that people can believe is that I’m working to get out of that moment. I’m looking for something to be better.”

Looking at how the rest of his season played out, the results speak volumes. August marked a turning point as Domínguez finally caught fire. And from there, it wasn’t long before The Martian touched down in the Bronx.

Since inking his name to a Yankees contract in 2019 -- with the largest July 2 signing bonus in franchise history -- Domínguez has been a highly touted prospect in the organization, but that never made him immune from hitting a rough skid. To start off the 2023 season, it took the 20-year-old switch-hitter until the eighth inning of his sixth game to record his first hit with the Patriots -- a single to right field.

Through the first three months of the season, there had been decent moments from Domínguez, but the overall numbers were uncharacteristic of the young phenom’s status. By the end of June, Domínguez was hitting .197 through 67 games.

The struggles at the plate were especially confounding considering the splash Domínguez made in his first Major League Spring Training as a non-roster invite. In just 22 at-bats during big-league camp, the outfielder recorded 10 hits, including four home runs.

But in the Eastern League, pitchers seemed wary of giving Domínguez much of anything to hit, which led to 56 walks from April to June (second most in the league) and an OBP of .345 despite the low batting average.

Domínguez’s demeanor never wavered during that time -- something that Somerset’s first-year manager, Raul Dominguez, noticed.

“He had the same kind of body language; you never saw him overreacting,” the skipper says. “If he went 0-for-4, he knew that the next day he was going to get another opportunity to play the game.”

That sort of maturity has long been part of Domínguez’s makeup. He doesn’t look for handouts or expect things to come easily just because he is a five-tool talent. In 2021, Domínguez was finally set to begin his professional career after the 2020 Minor League season was canceled due to the pandemic. As his season was just getting underway in the Rookie-level Florida Complex League, Domínguez received an invite to the MLB All-Star Futures Game, making him the youngest prospect to appear in the game since Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in 2017. But with just 20 at-bats in Rookie ball before he headed to Coors Field, Domínguez had mixed feelings about the selection.

“I honestly didn’t want to go because, in my mind, I didn’t deserve to be there,” Domínguez says. “It was my first year. I played, I think, seven games in the FCL.”

It’s a humble response from a player that has been the subject of tons of media coverage since his early teenage years. While Domínguez mostly ignores all the public attention and opinions, he still knows it’s there. All the hype has caused him to grow up a lot quicker than most of his peers; he has responded by developing a remarkably mature outlook that has impressed many of the people with whom he has worked.

“I think he’s got a gift to be that young and just control himself,” says his Double-A manager, Dominguez. “Knowing that everybody’s watching him, all the media, all the comments that people put out there, he just handles it pretty well. It seems like he’s been playing 30 years.”

Looking to get back in control at the plate during his slump with the Patriots, Domínguez was doing everything he could -- from continually taking reps in the batting cages to watching video -- all with the goal of making the right adjustments. Even while he was out on the field, he was making notes of situations he needed to work on and was talking through them with his coaches before they had the chance to bring them up themselves.

Eventually, Domínguez’s numbers took a turn for the better. He started trending in the right direction during the month of July, but the Patriots’ skipper says that it was the series at the start of August in Akron where he saw everything come together for Jasson.

“Me as a manager, I was waiting for that click. And he just did it,” the skipper says. “He just did it that week, and it didn’t stop.”

In six games against the RubberDucks, Domínguez recorded 10 hits, raising his batting average from .226 to .238. In the final game of the series, he also swiped three bags. (Despite last playing for the Patriots on Aug. 20, his 37 steals led the affiliate this year.)

Overall, Domínguez recorded a slash line of .380/.438/.608 during 18 August games with Somerset. The Martian was finally playing up to his name, and in doing so, proving that he was ready for Triple-A -- and beyond.

Riding the momentum that he had built up in Somerset, Domínguez continued to play some of his best baseball when he joined the RailRiders on Aug. 22. In his first game after being promoted, Domínguez tallied three hits and three RBIs. Right out of the gate, RailRiders manager Shelley Duncan was excited by what he was seeing from the young prospect.

“He’s already way ahead of the game mentally than any other 20-year-old I’ve ever seen,” Duncan said in late August. “Just his dialogue, how well he knows English, the stuff he knows about putting together a game plan, reading reports, understanding opposing pitchers, zone hitting --all the different fields that most advanced hitters take years to learn -- this guy’s already on top of.”

In just nine games with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Domínguez went 13-for-31 (.419), recording multiple hits in four of those contests. What impressed Duncan wasn’t just the performance on the field, though. The first-year skipper noticed he had an immediate impact in the RailRiders’ clubhouse, and that despite being one of the youngest players in the room, Domínguez immediately became someone teammates would go to for game advice.

Domínguez says he never viewed himself as a “captain” on any of his Minor League teams, but there was a sense of leading by example. His abilities on the field were impactful enough to categorize him as a leader -- no matter his age -- because other players were looking for ways to emulate his game.

“He’s been a natural leader, whether he likes it or not, and sometimes that’s just what comes with being that good,” Duncan says. “There are people who want to run away from it, and there’s people who love it, understand it, embrace it, and use it to make others better. And he understands that in order to have a positive impact on his teammates, as well as to be the best version of himself, you have to have high standards on the field and off, and he does.”

To Domínguez, leadership manifests itself through simple acts of being a good teammate. Although it took a little time for him to open up, he formed good relationships throughout the organization -- especially with guys who also made it to the Bronx this season, such as Austin Wells. Yankees teammates can always count on finding Domínguez laughing or smiling.

“We take our job seriously, but we make sure we have fun at the same time,” Domínguez says. “If you don’t have fun, it’s going to be difficult to play. I know that it’s a lot of hard times. There’s a lot of ups and downs in baseball.”

His impact on his teammates while in Somerset was made evident during his debut in Houston after being called up to The Show on Sept. 1. While the guys in Double-A couldn’t be glued to their televisions for The Martian’s first big-league at-bat like so many Yankees fans -- they were playing their own game in Maine -- once they learned that Domínguez had homered off reigning American League Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander on his first big-league swing, they couldn’t help but celebrate.

“I remember everybody was screaming,” Raul Dominguez says. “I got goose bumps that night over there in Portland, for sure. Right after the game, I got to the clubhouse and started watching the rest of the game, and for sure it was a highlight. I was really excited.”

Even before The Martian stepped to the plate in the Space City, his former teammates and coaches were all reaching out when they heard the news of his call-up.

“It makes me feel so proud of myself because it just means I’m a good teammate,” Domínguez says.

That’s the thing about Domínguez. For all the off-the-charts scouting reports and glowing reviews that have been written about him, they don’t fully reveal how special the 20-year-old is. The small sample size of Major League games showed that a big stage doesn’t faze him; he has essentially been on one throughout his whole career. The standard he holds himself to on the field and the way he carries himself off it proves Domínguez has a good head on his shoulders as he works toward his next opportunity in The Show. And with the potential to be one of the most exciting players in baseball, it’s not hard to see why the expectations remain out of this world for Yankees fans’ favorite Martian.

Brianna Mac Kay is an editor/publications assistant of Yankees Magazine_. This story appears in the October 2023 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to_ Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.