Aaron Boone tried to calm the Anthony Volpe chatter, but the Yankees’ shortstop mess still feels messy.
The latest round of noise around Volpe and Jose Caballero started with a simple question: who’s actually the Yankees’ shortstop, and did Volpe ever have a real chance to move somewhere else? Boone’s answer, at least publicly, was to make clear that Volpe remains the guy.
“He's been our shortstop, and he got hurt and had surgery over the winter. He's coming back, and we really haven't had - until Cabby walked in the door last year - a real competition-based thing there.
By the way, he's been a damn good shortstop. I hate to break it to everyone, but that still is real.
Has he had his struggles? Sure.
But he's also played really well out there in some long stretches defensively.”
That’s Boone drawing a line in the dirt. Caballero may be in the picture, but the manager framed the job as Volpe’s to lose, not a wide-open battle that suddenly changed the organization’s plans.
The wrinkle, of course, is that Boone himself had previously said Volpe would get second base reps back on May 22, and that never happened. On top of that, the Yankees kept Volpe in the minors after his rehab assignment ended while trying to gain an extra year of service time, which points more toward the club stretching the Volpe timeline than pushing him out of shortstop.
That’s why the rumor mill has felt so strange. Michael Kay added fuel by saying Volpe refused to play a position other than shortstop, with Joel Sherman echoing that claim, before Kay later said there was no truth to it. By then, the damage was done.
Boone’s comments didn’t exactly settle everything, but they did reinforce the organization’s stance: Volpe is still the shortstop, and the Yankees are still backing him.
The bigger issue may not be the position itself. It’s whether the Yankees can afford average or below-average production at a premium spot when other parts of the lineup are already dragging. Ryan McMahon, Austin Wells, Jasson Dominguez, Jazz Chisholm Jr., and others have all been part of the underperforming mix, and that makes the shortstop debate feel bigger than it might otherwise be.
For now, though, the message from Boone is pretty clear. There was no real positional revolt, and Volpe remains front and center in the Yankees’ plans.
In Other News...
Yankees Just Got Linked To A Trade Fans Will Hate Or Love
A speculative trade idea from Bleacher Report has the Yankees in an eye-catching spot, with the discussion centered on whether a utility infielder could be worth parting with a pair of pitching prospects. The appeal on New Yorks side is easy to see: Carlos Lagrange brings big arm strength and starter upside, while Eric Reyzelman has also drawn enough attention to be included in the kind of package that gets people talking.
Lagrange, in particular, has the sort of profile that makes these proposals divisive. The 23-year-old right-hander can reach 100 mph, pairs that heater with an above-average slider, and was effective in Triple-A before a shoulder injury complicated his season. On the other side of the idea sits Zack Gelof, a versatile infielder with years of team control and an .823 OPS, which is exactly why this kind of rumor can split a fan base right down the middle. [Read more 🡒]
A Forgotten Yankees Prospect From 2016 Is Back For The Worst Reason
A former Yankees pitching prospect from the 2016 system has resurfaced in an unwelcome way, this time in the Rockies Triple-A orbit. At 34, he is still hanging around professional baseball after a career that never quite matched the early buzz, one that took him out of the Yankees pipeline and eventually led to a major league debut with Oakland.
What makes the latest turn notable is less the uniform than the reason for it. The right-handers path has already included the usual grind of a fluctuating career, but now he is back in the news for a suspension tied to performance-enhancing drugs, a reminder that even players long removed from the spotlight can still leave one more awkward footnote behind. [Read more 🡒]