Spencer Jones at center of New York Yankees' trade deadline - ESPN

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — While trade deadline rumors swirl in the Bronx, the future of the New York Yankees — or at least their next week — is playing out 350 miles northwest of Yankee Stadium.

Spencer Jones, the hottest hitter in the minor leagues, is honing his craft for the Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders as they visit the Rochester Red Wings at the industrial city's downtown ballpark. Meanwhile, the big league club is back home after dropping a three-game set to the first-place Toronto Blue Jays three hours across the border.

With the pressure mounting on baseball's marquee franchise, Jones (and the rest of the baseball world) wonders where he'll be on Aug. 1.

Most years in the Bronx, the noise to call up Jones for his major league debut would have reached a deafening decibel level well before he clubbed three home runs in five innings in Thursday's matinee. The 6-foot-7 toolsy center fielder is batting .400 with 13 home runs and a 1.403 OPS in 19 games since his promotion to the RailRiders on June 27. The combination of Yankee Stadium's short porch and Jones' monster power from the left side is the stuff of Bleacher Creature dreams.

«I've never seen anything like it before,» RailRiders manager Shelley Duncan told ESPN before his team's 7-1 loss to the Red Wings on Tuesday snapped an 11-game winning streak. «I've never seen a player this talented before in my life.»

But Jones' recent outburst hasn't inspired the typical pleas for promotion. First, because he isn't a fit in the Yankees' clunky roster construction, which already has too many outfielders worthy of playing every day. Second, his most glaring flaw — a propensity to whiff at an alarming rate — has tempered expectations. Instead, his breakout, coupled