“He’s Hall of Fame, one of the best players I’ve ever played with,” Volpe said. “As great as he was on the field, we were just talking about what he did off the field and in the clubhouse. It’ll be missed. Everything about him will be missed. I think that’s not taking anything away from what we have this year, it’s just respect to him and all the stuff he’s able to help me and help our team with.”
The Yankees shortstop continued, “We have a lot of really, really good baseball players in there. We just want to win, and I think there’s a lot of different ways to win and a lot of different ways we feel like we can win a World Series. I feel like everyone knows we’ve got the guys.”
The Yankees did improve parts of their team after last year’s World Series defeat. But Soto will be missed while he brings hope to their cross-town rivals.
Who must step up for the Yankees in Juan Soto’s absence?
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There were only five position players in the league with a higher bWAR than Juan Soto last year. While the Yankees did not bring in any players better than him, they brought in multiple players to fix their holes. Soto’s outfield replacement is Cody Bellinger, but their whole lineup will have to step up to replace Soto.
That includes Volpe, who has struggled offensively in his first two years in the majors. His OPS+ has been woefully below 100, the league average, each season. After a 20-homer rookie season, he hit only 12 homers in his second season. While the Yankees are not expecting power from the shortstop position, someone has to help replace Soto.
Austin Wells, Paul Goldschmidt, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. will also be important in helping fill the Soto gap. But those players are all better defenders than Soto was in right field.
After an embarrassing Game 5 defensive performance in the World Series, they needed to improve their defense this offseason. The offense has a lot to prove, but the Yankees will win more games if they make fewer errors than they did last year.
