No, Anthony Volpe is not Corey Seager — and that's OK
Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe throws to first base for an out during the ninth inning of a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals in Kansas City, Mo., Saturday, Sept. 30, 2023. Credit: AP/Colin E. Braley
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Anthony Volpe didn’t voluntarily step into the crosshairs Tuesday when general manager Brian Cashman directed his score-settling rant at the surrounding media. But the rookie shortstop wound up as collateral damage anyway, the subject of a back-and-forth debate questioning the Yankees’ player development system, along with the team’s “process” in general.
It’s one thing for Cashman to be in attack mode, and he certainly seemed to relish this opportunity to joust with reporters. But Volpe already had enough on his plate after a tumultuous season in the Bronx, and now he’s being singled-out as another reason to criticize the Yankees’ decision-making, whether it’s force-feeding his launch-angle swing or saving the position for him rather than pursuing someone like World Series MVP Corey Seager two years ago.
None of this is Volpe’s fault, obviously. All he did was show up for spring training, win the Opening Day job and then have the type of learning-curve debut many rookies would be thrilled to put on the back of their baseball card. It’s just that his timing was bad. Volpe’s promotion, the stuff of childhood dreams, had the misfortune of happening in an 82-win season, which qualifies as a nightmare by Yankees’ standards.
So rather than Volpe blending into an All-Star lineup, he often became the focus as it crumbled around him, which isn’t what the front office had in mind when pushing the 21-year-old Jersey kid onto the biggest stage in sports. By season’s end, the uppercut swing that produced his 21 homers -- the eighth highest total among the 21 qualifying MLB shortstops -- was blamed for his .209 batting average, third worst out of the 133 players with enough qualifying at-bats. Also, Volpe’s .283 on-base percentage was second from the bottom, as only Javy Baez (.267) was worse.
“As we entered spring training [last year], I know that we solved a number of spots that we felt really good about and it didn’t play out the way we had hoped,” Cashman said Tuesday as he explained his 2023 strategy. “We got Volpe getting developed and he wound up winning the Gold Glove. He didn’t hit as well as we know he’s capable of ... But that’s what I mean by 'what’s obtainable'. If we couldn’t pull down someone within the marketplace, we’re going to go with a kid. It didn’t work out.”
Still, Volpe was a 20-20 player (going 24-for-29 on stolen-base attempts), his 60 RBIs were tied for third with Giancarlo Stanton on the Yankees and, well, there is that aforementioned Gold Glove. Volpe’s most glaring weakness? He’s not Seager, who signed a 10-year, $325 million contract with the Rangers the same offseason that Cashman filled the shortstop vacancy via a trade for Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
A big part of that IKF gambit was Cashman’s longer-term vision of hustling Volpe -- then the team’s top prospect -- into the position, sooner rather than later. The GM already had a pair of $300 million players on the roster in Stanton and Gerrit Cole, with another in Aaron Judge on the horizon. So as the payroll skyrocketed, Volpe was the chance to save a few bucks at shortstop, and Cashman steadfastly refused to include him in any trades -- one of the reasons why damaged-goods Frankie Montas ended up in pinstripes rather than a game-changer like Luis Castillo.
In the big picture, Volpe is only a piece on Cashman’s chessboard. He doesn’t have Hal Steinbrenner’s ear like Judge, the team’s $360 million assistant GM. But as Cashman revisited his moves from the past few seasons, Volpe was nudged to the forefront, both as a youthful gamble and credit to his recently-maligned development corps.
“I’m proud of that decision,” Cashman said. “The previous year, we had questions whether we actually had a shortstop or not. So did we improve our shortstop position for 2023? The answer to that is yes. Did he hit as well as we hoped he would? The answer was no. He did decent, but ultimately acknowledging, on the offensive side, that we jumped him a little bit, we aggressively promoted him.
“It was that decision versus signing somebody for $300-plus million off the free-agent market, and last year we didn’t have to do that. We made a decision to promote Volpe. We thought he earned it.”
If the Yankees made the playoffs, a scenario that seemed like a lock on Opening Day, Volpe’s rookie season wouldn’t be coming under such scrutiny. But with Judge missing nearly two months, a chronically banged-up Stanton, Anthony Rizzo being concussed, and a malfunctioning DJ LeMahieu, Volpe playing 159 games made him one of the very few Yankees under the magnifying glass on a daily basis, through all six months.
The Yankees’ passing on Seager, especially after he just led the Rangers to their first title, will continue to haunt Cashman. Just as the shadow of Bryce Harper still hangs over the Bronx. And this past week, Volpe was unwittingly thrown into the evidence pile in the case against the Yankees, with Cashman on the stand.
Coming right after his Gold Glove, that felt particularly unfair for Volpe, but it’s a weight he’ll be carrying for a while, along with the usual pressure of wearing pinstripes.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
