Volpe’s Struggles Mean Present And Future Questions For The Yankees

The New York Yankees had one of their best innings of the year against the Washington Nationals yesterday. In the bottom of the third, they scored nine runs on eight hits and four home runs, but one player was noticeably absent from the party. Anthony Volpe batted sixth and 15th in the frame, making the first and third outs.

Struggling Volpe

The inning was a microcosm of Volpe’s challenges this season. He’s hitting .204/.269/.393 with an 81 OPS+, indicating his offense has been 19% below the league average, and a recent two-game benching failed to break him out of a 1-37 slump. He has also made several defensive lapses at shortstop, and he leads the American League with 17 errors at the position.

His fWAR (the FanGraphs version of WAR) is 0.8 this year, which makes him the second-worst qualified shortstop in MLB. No player with enough at-bats to qualify for the batting title has a lower on-base percentage than his .269 mark.

Volpe has gotten an extra-long leash from the Yankees, in part due to his prospect pedigree. He was their first-round pick in 2019 as a local kid who grew up as a Yankees fan. He was the fifth-ranked overall prospect in baseball by MLB Pipeline prior to his debut in 2023. Every indicator pointed to him being their shortstop of the future, but in three years, he has a .221/.283/.378 batting line with an 83 OPS+.

Immediate Future

The Yankees just completed a sweep of the Nationals and are riding a four-game winning streak. They visit the Chicago White Sox next, who have a 48-85 record. Still, they’re in the thick of a playoff race. At 73-60, they’re in the second wild card spot, 1.5 games ahead of the Seattle Mariners and three games in front of the Kansas City Royals. They trail the Toronto Blue Jays by 4.5 games in the American League East.

With 29 games to go in the regular season, the team needs to prioritize winning over player development, and Volpe has shown he isn’t cutting it as a starter on a playoff team.

The Yankees traded for utility man José Caballero from the Tampa Bay Rays at the deadline, who started at shortstop during Volpe’s benching. While he lacks power, he has a .334 on-base percentage this season. He also leads MLB with 41 stolen bases, and he led the league with 44 steals last year.

Caballero’s 87 OPS+ isn’t much better than Volpe’s, but with his exceptional baserunning and more reliable defense, his 1.6 fWAR is twice as high. He’s also 9-32 with six walks, two home runs, and seven stolen bases as a Yankee. As he has been superior in all phases of the game, it’s going to be harder and harder to leave him on the bench when Volpe starts.

Long-Term Future

Volpe and Caballero will both be eligible for arbitration for the first time in 2026, which means the Yankees can retain their rights through at least 2028. However, neither one has hit well enough over their careers to be relied on as a starter going into next year.

The cheapest option is to put the two of them into a time share or battle for playing time, but the club would still have one of the weakest shortstop outlooks of any contending team.

There’s only one clear upgrade at the position in free agency this winter. Bo Bichette of the Blue Jays should be one of the biggest names on the market. The 27-year-old is batting .307/.350/.470 with 16 home runs, and he’s leading the league in hits for the third time in his career.

Competition for his service will be fierce, and it’s unclear if the Yankees will want to invest in a hefty contract at that position. They’ll have other needs on the roster to address at the same time. They also might not want to block top prospect George Lombard Jr., a shortstop in Double-A.

If they don’t sign Bichette or make a trade for a shortstop, they’ll have to rely on Volpe and Caballero again, despite overwhelming evidence that they aren’t sufficient starters for a team with World Series aspirations. In the meantime, Volpe’s struggles are forcing the Yankees to recognize that they can’t afford to give him many more opportunities.