Anthony Volpe won’t be on the Yankees’ Opening Day roster and will likely be out until May as he rehabs his shoulder following offseason surgery. I have yet to see any Yankees fan anywhere upset that Jose Caballero is going to be the Yankees’ starting shortstop to begin the season, and that’s all you need to know about where the fan base is when it comes to the player the Yankees still believe is going to be a star.
Unfortunately, there’s no chance Volpe will lose his job to Jose Caballero. There’s a better chance Hal Steinbrenner caves to putting an advertisement on the team’s iconic uniform. Oh wait. OK, there’s a better chance Hal Steinbrenner opens the Yankees’ books and lets the public see their profits. Caballero could have a March/April like Aaron Judge had last season (.427/.521/.761) and the moment Volpe comes off the injured list, he’s going right back to being the everyday shortstop. Aaron Boone has been asked if Volpe will go right back to being the everyday shortstop many times since the end of last season and every time he has essentially said he will without saying those exact words.
Boone hasn’t used those exact words because he wants Yankees fans to believe no one’s job is safe and that the idea of playing time based on performance exists within the team. But we all know that is a crock of shit. Just look at last September when the Yankees tried to act as if shortstop was an open competition down the stretch. Caballero played 18 games in September and had an .845 OPS and Volpe played 18 games and had a .534 OPS and Volpe still started every postseason game. He started every game of the ALDS despite going 1-for-15 with 11 strikeouts before mercifully being pinch hit for in the ninth inning of Game 4, so he wouldn’t have to endure being booed off his home field again. Caballero is a placeholder until Volpe is ready and nothing more no matter how well he plays.
“I just can’t wait to go back out there and play and help the team win,” Volpe said this week, though I’m not sure how often he has actually helped the team win over the last three seasons. “If I do that and play the way I know I can play, everything will take care of itself.”
Volpe shouldn’t want to play the way he knows he can play since to this point in his career he’s been 16 percent worse than the major-league average offensively. As for defensively, well who cares (even though he was atrocious defensively last year as well and has seemed to always commit an error in the biggest moments of games throughout his career)? Defensive shortstops grow on trees. If defense at shortstop were all that mattered, Oswald Peraza would be the Yankees’ starting shortstop and not another failed Yankees prospect.
“I’m not really looking in the past,” Volpe said. “I just get excited about what it could be like when it’s all healed.”
Since Volpe doesn’t want to look in the past, I will do it for him.
Volpe said he felt a “pop” in his shoulder after diving for a ball in the Yankees’ May 3 game against the Rays last season.
“It happened quick and it was scary, but after that, I felt OK and I felt like I had my strength,” Volpe said after that game. “I’ve never really had anything else pop or displace or anything like that, so I have nothing to compare it to.”
Volpe remained in the game and then was sent for X-rays and an MRI, all of which came back as “good news,” Boone said at the time. Volpe was held out of the lineup the next day, but the day after that he went right back to being the Yankees’ everyday shortstop.
Volpe finished the regular season with a .212/.272/.391 slash line and an abysmal .663 OPS. It’s hard to chalk that level of non-major-league-caliber offense up to his shoulder injury, considering the Yankees and he both said he was fine, the Yankees said the imaging looked good and Volpe’s OPS over the previous two years had been .661. In 2025, he produced the most doubles in any of his three seasons, the most RBIs, the fewest strikeouts and the highest slugging percentage. Volpe with an injured shoulder was better than Volpe with a healthy shoulder.
And that’s why I’m not being fooled into thinking this surgery will have resolved some underlying issue that has him much closer to being an all-time Yankees bust rather than the long-term answer at shortstop. He has played in 472 regular-season games and been given 1,886 sad plate appearances with disappointing results, and yet, the Yankees continue to tell you he is going to be a star. I wish they were right. I wish Volpe were to become a star beginning this season. But based on his career performance to date — when healthy or not — there’s absolutely nothing to suggest he’s going to become a star and it takes being a stubborn front office employee of the Yankees or the biggest homer of the team possible to think otherwise.
If the same Volpe from the last three years — the one with the .222/.283/.379 career slash line — is the Volpe we see in 2026, what excuse will the Yankees have then? His shoulder won’t be a valid one since it’s been surgically repaired. Inexperience won’t be a valid one as he will finish the year with around 600 games played and just under 2,500 plate appearances to his name. If Volpe doesn’t produce like a former organizational No. 1 prospect and former No. 3 baseball prospect should in Year 4 it’s hard to believe he ever will. And it’s already hard to believe he ever will.
Last modified: Feb 19, 2026
