The New York Yankees have been on a roll, winning 11 of their last 14 to turn around what had looked like a season slipping away. They are riding the first-place Toronto Blue Jays’ tail, just two games out in the American League East, and are clinging to a one-game lead over the Boston Red Sox for the top AL Wild Card spot.
But ahead of six crucial games — three against the AL Central-leading Detroit Tigers starting Tuesday, followed by a trip to Fenway Park for the final three meetings of the year with the Red Sox — the Yankees still have a serious problem.
That problem’s name is Anthony Volpe.
The third-year shortstop is essentially a hometown kid, from Morristown, New Jersey, less than an hour west of Yankee Stadium.
Volpe was the Yankees first-round draft pick, 30th overall, in 2019, out of Delbarton High School in Morristown.
He seems to be the ideal Yankee — but statistically, Volpe has been and continues to be one of the worst players in baseball this season.
Defensively, Volpe has been a disaster, with an AL-leading 19 errors (second only in MLB to Elly De La Cruz of the Cincinnati Reds with 23). On the offensive side of the ball, Volpe’s wRC+ — a measure of run production where the league average is set at 100 — is seventh-worst among qualified players at 82.
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His OPS of .663 is fifth from the bottom. His Win Probability Added (WPA) is eighth worst of the 147 qualified players measured by Fangraphs at -2.09.
And yet, manager Aaron Boone continues to stand by Volpe, playing him at shortstop in 140 of the Yankees 143 games in 2025, heading into Tuesday.
“The Yankees can’t afford their shortstop to be both an offensive black hole and a defensive liability in the same season,” wrote Empire Sports Media founder Alexander Wilson on Tuesday. “That’s where Jose Caballero enters the conversation, a versatile utility man capable of taking over full-time shortstop duties. Caballero has logged over 1,100 innings at short, with four defensive runs saved and nine outs above average in his career.”
But Boone appears to have no plan at shortstop for the Yankees’ stretch drive other than sticking with Volpe — as he told Bryan Hoch of MLB.com on Tuesday afternoon.
The manager’s problem, however, is that with the upcoming six games against two opponents whose combined winning percentage is .561 — sixth-best in baseball if they were a single team — the Yankees cannot afford to make mistakes.
Whether Boone will finally make the call to pull Volpe from the lineup appears to be the top question Yankee fans are asking as the season enters its final three weeks.
