The Anthony Volpe Experience Will Give You Whiplash

And not just from whipping your head around to track another one of his throws sailing past the first baseman. I'll be here all day. Try the veal.

Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe has a problem. No one involved wants to use the dreaded Y-word. Yips are for Chihuahuas! It's a "defensive slump," according to his manager Aaron Boone. To Volpe, it's simply "this," as in, "I’ve never really experienced something like this." What this is is a newfound and inexplicable inability to throw a baseball where he wants it to go. Volpe has committed three errors in his last two games to push his season total to 16, the most of anyone in MLB.

In the first inning on Tuesday against the Rays, Volpe botched a flip to second in an attempt to turn two; it would instead lead to two runs. In the ninth, he short-hopped a throw to first that would have ended the game. On Wednesday, the situation was a little lower-leverage, but another throw to first found the dirt instead and brought out the boo birds.

Ah, but the Anthony Volpe Experience is not so straightforward. It would be one thing if errors were all he were contributing. But in Tuesday's win, Volpe homered, scored twice, and drove in a pair. And in Wednesday's downright wacky 5-4 victory over Tampa in which the Yankees erased deficits in the eighth, ninth, and 10th innings before winning in 11, Volpe went yard again, in a huge moment.

Perhaps having consumed some cursed frogurt which briefly transforms him into Alex Rodriguez after each infield miscue, Volpe, over his last 11 games, has committed five errors and homered six times.

It's been a confusing season for the third-year man who was heralded as the Yankees' shortstop of the future. The advertised bat never really developed, but Volpe emerged as one of the game's best fielders, winning a Gold Glove in his rookie year and being named a finalist in 2024. But at the same time he's on pace for career-high power numbers, he's taken a huge step back in the field. (If you don't like errors as a measurement of performance, he's middle-to-back-of-the-pack in most of the fancy metrics. However, throwing the ball to first remains a fairly important skill for shortstops to have.)

Complicating things is the Yankee organization's (but possibly mostly its fans') premature and unofficial anointing of Volpe as the franchise's future before he ever reached the bigs. A whole lot of emotional investment has been made in his being good, and no one really wants to consider it a sunk cost, which would be a necessary mental step for the Yankees to upgrade at the position. As such, there aren't any better options on the roster than Volpe right now. Oswald Peraza can't hit; Amed Rosario can't field.

So when Boone was asked if he'd consider sitting Volpe for a day or several, he declined to answer, but may have given a hint when he talked about his own defensive slump in his college days. He said he was mentally "a wreck," which he insisted Volpe is currently not, and said the only way out of it was to play through it. So, if you're attending any Yankees games this season, be on the lookout for baseballs—whether you're sitting in the bleachers or behind first base.