{"id":175875,"date":"2025-08-26T02:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T02:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/175875\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T02:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T02:34:08","slug":"yankees-still-consider-anthony-volpe-starting-shortstop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/175875\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees Still Consider Anthony Volpe Starting Shortstop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthony Volpe<\/a><\/strong> is out of the lineup as the Yankees open their series against the Nationals. It\u2019s the second straight game in which\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Caballero<\/a><\/strong> gets the start at shortstop. New York is giving the scuffling Volpe what amounts to a two-day mental reset. However, manager Aaron Boone made clear this evening that the Yankees aren\u2019t moving the third-year infielder to the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cI view Anthony as our shortstop,\u201d Boone told reporters (including Chris Kirschner of The Athletic<\/a>). The skipper confirmed that Volpe would be back in the lineup tomorrow and continue playing regularly from that point. He added that the Yanks consider Caballero their \u201c10th man\u201d and will keep bouncing him around the diamond in a utility role (via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Volpe is hitting .208\/.274\/.400 across 509 plate appearances. He had a productive April but carries a .198\/.255\/.382 batting line in 96 games since the beginning of May. Volpe has never hit for a high average or reached base at a strong clip. He\u2019s tied with\u00a0Dansby Swanson<\/a><\/strong> for eighth among shortstops with 18 home runs, but he hasn\u2019t been a productive overall hitter. The struggles have magnified over the past six weeks, as he\u2019s batting .171 with a .203 on-base percentage going back to July 1. Among 253 hitters with at least 100 plate appearances in that stretch, only Miami\u2019s Dane Myers<\/a><\/strong> has a lower batting average. No one has a worse on-base mark.<\/p>\n

The offensive drought is magnified by his uncharacteristic issues on the other side of the ball. Volpe won a Gold Glove as a rookie in 2023; he was a finalist for that honor last year. He trailed only Swanson and Ezequiel Tovar<\/a><\/strong> in combined Defensive Runs Saved among shortstops over those two seasons. Statcast\u2019s Outs Above Average had him tied for seventh. Even with the OBP deficiencies, Volpe\u2019s power and plus defense made him a valuable all-around player. The Yankees presumably felt he was on a similar trajectory as Swanson, an eventual everyday shortstop on a World Series team who received a $177MM free agent contract.<\/p>\n

Volpe\u2019s defensive grades have tanked this year as well. DRS has him right around average. Statcast has him five runs below par, tying him for fourth worst at the position. Volpe has committed 17 errors, matching his career high with another month to play. Only Elly De La Cruz<\/a><\/strong> (19) has been charged with more this season.<\/p>\n

Caballero, acquired from the Rays at the deadline, has gotten out to a fantastic start to his Yankee tenure. He\u2019s hitting .286 with more walks than strikeouts in 15 games. Caballero has stolen six bases in seven tries and is up to an MLB-high 40 steals between Tampa Bay and New York. He led the American League with 44 steals last year, though he was also caught a league leading 16 times. Caballero is a plus runner and versatile defender but is unlikely to remain an above-average hitter over a large sample. He owns a .227\/.313\/.337 batting line in more than 1000 career plate appearances.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no argument that Caballero hasn\u2019t been the more productive player of late. Still, the 24-year-old Volpe entered the season as New York\u2019s expected franchise shortstop. Caballero is soon to turn 29 and is established as a high-end utility player. The Yankees can still find playing time for him on most days. He\u2019s a right-handed complement to\u00a0Jazz Chisholm Jr.<\/a><\/strong> and\u00a0Ryan McMahon<\/a><\/strong> at second and third base, respectively. They\u2019re tolerating\u00a0Giancarlo Stanton<\/a><\/strong> in right field for as long as\u00a0Aaron Judge<\/a><\/strong> is unable to throw at game speed, but they\u2019ll frequently kick Caballero into the outfield later in games for defensive purposes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Volpe is out of the lineup as the Yankees open their series against the Nationals. It\u2019s the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":175876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5243,61866,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-175875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-anthony-volpe","9":"tag-jose-caballero","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115092734906482364","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}