We need to start this with an acknowledgement that Anthony Volpe will turn 25 on April 28th, the same age Aaron Judge was in his breakout season, so we can’t write the Yankee shortstop off just yet. Ok, age acknowledged.
I do still think the Yankees have an Anthony Volpe problem. The club has given him all the runway in the world — 472 games played out of a possible 486 to start his career. In that time he has never been a league average hitter, and while his 2024 was above average, entirely due to his strong
defense, the onetime Top 10 prospect in baseball hasn’t exactly lived up to his billing.
And as Yogi said, it gets late early out there. Volpe has just three years of team control left, admittedly with players’ contract status ahead of a possible work stoppage next season up in the air. If his baseline is an 85ish wRC+ and you’re relying on defense, that’s not exactly something you want to bank on as arbitration raises creep up.
Volpe has also never been optioned to Triple-A, which is what we’re here to talk about today. He’s not going to be ready for Opening Day, as he continues to recover from shoulder surgery in the offseason. It’s tempting to bank on his healthy return being enough for a step forward, except for his remarkable consistency in producing a .660 OPS over three seasons. A rehab assignment is all but guaranteed, but I think the Yankees should go further than that.
I’m willing to concede that Volpe’s shoulder injury contributed to his poor defense, but his approach at the plate has been all over the place throughout his career. He’s vacillated between a contact-heavy attitude and one that prioritizes driving the ball in the air, and neither have really stuck. He runs into troughs where he steps in the bucket on every swing for three weeks that guts his overall production, even when he manages to establish some kind of average-or-better batting line.
Two months with Scranton allows Volpe to fully recover from labrum surgery, as well as work out those persistent mechanical failures in a much-lower-stakes environment. José Caballero, who will be at shortstop on Opening Day, is projected to produce exactly the same as Tony Fox’s 2025, and five points of wRC+ shy of Volpe’s 2026 projections. In effect, the Yankees have two Anthony Volpes on the roster already — Caballero shined in his post-trade-deadline time with the Yankees, so giving him some room to run starting the season may help him stay on that higher level, while giving Volpe time to correct his habitual swing failures can help HIM in the long run.
There is an icky factor to this suggestion, of course. A player accrues a year of MLB service after 172 days on either the 26 man roster or the injured list. Rehab assignments come within the scope of an IL stint, so Volpe would continue to accrue service on a brief trip to Scranton. Wheat I’m proposing is a much longer time at Triple-A, one that would make it impossible for Volpe to be on the 26-man roster for 172 days. This will delay Volpe’s free agency, ticketing him for the 2030 class instead of 2029.
That’s no small sacrifice to ask of a player, especially a player who could have his age-26 season wiped out by a work stoppage. You don’t need a player’s consent for a minor league option until he has five years of MLB service, but being clear with Volpe about the expectations, and the investment in his long-term success, would be crucial to this kind of decision.
I believe there is a world where Anthony Volpe could be an above-average MLB hitter. I believe that he has strange mechanical deviations and I also believe he has gotten into his own head on more than one occasion. Giving him a real Triple-A run, with a real chance at fixing what’s broken in his offensive approach, is the best way to square that complicated circle.
