It’s been a nightmare of a year for Anthony Volpe. His always-mediocre-to-bad bat has been just that, but for the first time in his career, his glove has also fallen apart. He ranks near the bottom of virtually every shortstop range and playmaking stat, including the third-most errors in the game. The boobirds have been out, and loud, at Yankee Stadium. While he looked good in his return to the lineup Tuesday, we have more than a full year of him being the definition of replacement level:
Meanwhile, José Caballero has been a stick of dynamite since being dealt from the Rays. Funny enough he and Volpe have almost identical OPSs on the season as a whole, but since August 1st Cabby has a 135 wRC+, reaching base at a .356 clip and stealing 13 bags — in just 33 games. Volpe’s played in two more games in that same stretch, with a .222 OBP, four swipes and a 53 wRC+. 0.2 fWAR is really too small a difference to make any conclusions, but suffice to say that Caballero (0.9) has been about exactly as valuable in his 33 Yankee games as Volpe (0.7) has been all season.
One of those guys is playing like the starting shortstop on a playoff team, and the other one isn’t.
We also have to consider the role of Volpe’s shoulder injury, how his one real hot streak after a May 3rd dive came after a cortisone shot over the All-Star break. He received a second shot earlier this week, and maybe that’s why he looked good on Tuesday.
The All-Star break ended on July 18, and Volpe was hot until August 4 — 16 days’ worth of games. 16 days from Monday, when he reportedly received the shot, is the first day of the American League Wild Card Series, which in all likelihood is where the Yankees will be playing. Maybe Volpe is actually better, but do you want to take that risk?
Then there’s how the crowds will react to him, especially if that three-game Wild Card matchup is in the Bronx. There’s been more than one instance where Volpe has been booed like the hunter that shot Bambi’s mom after a big error or a strikeout with multiple men on. The Yankee fanbase, for now, seems to have given up on him — in no small part because Caballero has done what we thought Volpe would do.
You can believe or not believe in Mystique and Aura, but if you’re a 24-year-old coming off a season where you know you’ve played terribly, 46,537 people expressing passionate displeasure at your performance can’t set you right. For a player that needs a serious reset in the offseason, entering his first round of arbitration at that, it may be best both for short-term team goals and long-term career targets to let him end this bad season a little early.
For José Caballero, his particular skillset plays up in the postseason, as he and Jazz Chisholm Jr. have become chaos demons on the basepaths. Since Cabby came over from Tampa, the pair have gone 19 for 23 in stolen base attempts, an 83 percent success rate. Critically, they’ve also gotten on base at above a .330 clip, lending a weapon that the Yankees haven’t had in years, and have reportedly been searching for.
Anthony Volpe’s an easy guy to root for, and a big part of José Caballero’s value is that he’s not tied to just shortstop. But for the next four weeks or so, as the Yankees try to successfully defend their AL pennant, the best defensive and offensive alignment sees the onetime “shortstop of the future” sitting in the dugout.
