Erik Boland: Yankees' Anthony Volpe recalled, but it may be a short stay
Anthony Volpe of the New York Yankees. Credit: Getty Images/Chris Graythen
BALTIMORE — This was one storyline Aaron Boone clearly wanted to get out ahead of.
For the Yankees manager, not always the best at these things, “we’ll see” — one of his stock phrases — would not do.
In discussing Tuesday afternoon’s news that shortstop Jose Caballero had been placed on the injured list with a right middle finger fracture and that Anthony Volpe was being recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Boone was unambiguous on two points.
First, he expected Volpe, a lightning-rod topic for much of the fan base the last two-plus seasons, to “pretty much” play every day at short while Caballero is on the IL.
Second, when Caballero returns, is he expected to regain full-time starter duties?
“Yeah,” Boone said. “He’s played as well as anyone out there. That would be my expectation.”
After Tuesday night’s 6-2 victory that snapped the Yankees’ four-game losing streak, Caballero said of the IL stint he tried to talk the team out of: “Ten days, that’s the max I’m taking.”
Which means the stay in the majors for Volpe, the club’s everyday shortstop each of the previous three seasons, could be a short one.
Which would represent the continuation of what has been a hard organizational fall for the 25-year-old, a one-time top position prospect who seized the starting job in a three-way spring training competition in 2023 and seemed well on his way to holding the job long-term.
Volpe, who drove himself the roughly 3½ hours from Scranton to Baltimore on Tuesday afternoon and arrived at Camden Yards around the start of the game, said none of that is on his mind.
“If I learned anything out of this, it’s there’s things I can’t control and things I can,” Volpe said after the game, in which the Yankees got a leadoff homer from Paul Goldschmidt, a three-run shot from Trent Grisham, and another solid start from Will Warren (5-1, 3.42). Aaron Judge went 2-for-3 with two walks. “We’ve got a game tomorrow and that’s what I’m going to be focused on.”
Though Boone said in the past there has been no change in the way the organization views Volpe, the way Boone and the organization discuss the player certainly has.
Volpe started the season on the IL to finish his rehab from an October surgery to repair a labrum tear in his left shoulder. Upon the completion of his rehab, the Yankees, on May 3, optioned Volpe to Triple-A.
“We have to acknowledge first how well Jose’s played,” Boone said on May 4.
Back on April 10 at Tropicana Field, before a game against the Rays, GM Brian Cashman appeared to signal the club’s intention when he was directly asked: Is Volpe the starting shortstop when he returns?
“That’s always been the plan,” Cashman said.
But that reflected how Caballero was playing at the time, not to mention the Yankees. After going 0-for-3 in a 5-3 loss to the Rays on April 10, Caballero was hitting .150 with a .384 OPS. The Yankees were 8-5 (soon to be 8-7 after getting swept by Tampa).
But Caballero soon took off, which corresponded with the Yankees doing so, too. He hit .313 with an .878 OPS over his next 23 games, the Yankees going 17-6 in that stretch.
“It’s acknowledging where we are as a club right now,” Boone said on May 4 of the Volpe decision. The Yankees won that night to improve to 24-11.
The call with Volpe reflected both how the Yankees have generally played with Caballero at short, and how the organization has operated in a more cutthroat manner this season.
There are no sacred cows.
Last season, even as Volpe’s struggles in the field and at the plate became more and more pronounced, Boone took a down-is-up and up-is-down approach in publicly evaluating the shortstop.
At times, Boone’s discourse sounded like something inspired from Orwell’s 1984, following The Party’s command “to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.”
Contrast that with Tuesday when Boone was asked about what he had seen and/or heard about Volpe’s play since he was optioned (the shortstop didn’t hit much during either his rehab assignment or when he officially joined the Scranton roster).
“Still kind of getting it going a little bit,” Boone said. “I watched it the other day, just missed a ball to center, so he hasn’t gotten a lot of results yet . . . He’s had a number of at-bats, a lot of reps now, a lot of playing time . . . so hopefully [he’s] ready to go and come up here and be a spark for us.”
The manager said it evenly, without emotion, sounding as if his real “hope” was for a Caballero return as soon as possible.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
