Yanks' Anthony Volpe impresses Twins' Carlos Correa

Anthony Volpe has impressed his veteran Yankees teammates pretty much from Day 1 of spring training.

And the superlatives from those teammates — as well as from his coaches, manager and other club staff — have continued unabated 16 games into his first season in the majors even though Volpe has experienced his share of difficulties at the plate.

Turns out Volpe also has made an impression on a player widely considered one of the best all-around shortstops in the sport.

“He has the tools to become a superstar,” the Twins’ Carlos Correa said in an interview over the weekend in the Bronx. “All he has to do is just play.”

Correa said Volpe the baserunner was the first thing that jumped out at him, not a surprise given that Volpe is 7-for-7 in stolen bases, including 4-for-4 in the last two games against the Twins.

“He can run. He’s going to steal a lot of bags,” Correa said.

There was more.

“He’s got power,” Correa said. “He’s got good plate discipline from what I’ve been able to gather. He moves really well at shortstop. He has all of the tools.”

The Yankees have always felt that way, the reason they made Volpe their first-round pick (30th overall) in 2019.

Volpe has been accompanied by hype almost from the time he was drafted, hype that steadily increased at every step during his climb through the Yankees’ system. It peaked at the end of spring training when he won the competition for starting shortstop.

It is glaring attention that Correa can associate with having been the No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 draft by the Astros. The spotlight followed him each step of the way until he made his much-heralded big-league debut as a 20-year-old in 2015.

But Correa, voted American League Rookie of the Year in 2015, said Volpe is dealing with hype at a different level.

“For me, it was easy because all I had to do was play. I had no comparisons; there was nobody that they could compare me to,” said Correa, a two-time All-Star and a World Series winner with the 2017 Astros. “He has Jeter. Everybody’s going to compare him to the Captain. Everything he does, everything he says, everything in that spotlight is going to be compared to what Jeter did, and those are really tough shoes to fill.”

Volpe, who will turn 22 on April 28, grew up in Watchung, New Jersey, as a diehard Yankees fan, with Derek Jeter his favorite player.

Correa, who has always loved playing at Yankee Stadium despite getting booed louder there than anyone not named Jose Altuve (a result of their involvement with the 2017 Astros and their sign-stealing scandal), offered his unprompted counsel to Volpe:

“My advice to him would be just take it pitch by pitch, day by day and just focus on the things you can control,” Correa said. “And that’s the preparation and the process. Everything else will take care of itself. If he takes care of the process, then he’ll be fine at the end of the day because he’s super-talented.”

Volpe is hitting just .191 with one homer, one double and a .309 on-base percentage in 16 games (he’s walked eight times in 55 plate appearances), though he does have a hit in each of his last five games.

“When we made the decision to go with him [out of camp], part of it was we think he’s totally equipped to handle everything that’s going to come his way,” Aaron Boone recently said of Volpe’s offensive slump.

As Correa said, he liked what he saw in the four games against his team, games in which Volpe went 4-for-12 with that first major-league home run.

“I think he’s been looking good [this series] and I think he’s going to pick it up,” Correa said. “And once it clicks for him, I think he’s going to really take off.”