On the final day of the regular season, Aaron Judge heaped some more praise on Anthony Volpe for how the 22-year-old shortstop handled the inevitable ups and downs of his rookie year.
The ups were his defense — he was named an AL Gold Glove finalist on Wednesday — becoming the first Yankees rookie to join the 20-20 club and how he carried himself.
Perhaps the most glaring low was his, well, low batting average.
“I know he definitely doesn’t want to be hitting .[209] for his first season — I know he’s not happy about that,” Judge said. “I think he’s had an impressive year so far, but we’re only seeing the beginning. He’s going to come out with a bang next year.”
Judge is far from the only one who believes there is more in the tank from Volpe — particularly with regards to being a more complete hitter.
“I think Volpe should be a .270-.280 hitter,” hitting coach Sean Casey said during the final week of the season. “That’s going to run into 25 mistakes [home runs]. And he should be a gap-to-gap doubles guy, too. I think one day, he’s a 35-40 double guy, too. For me, he’s not a .210 hitter.
“As he’s learning up here and learning the game — and getting to face these pitchers more and more — you start to understand how guys are [pitching you]. So next year when he’s here, he’s gonna [realize], ‘I have a body of work against some of these guys, 10-20 at-bats,’ where you’re like, ‘Oh, this is how he pitched me.’ Your game plan starts to change. So I’m excited to see where his career goes, because he’s only gonna get better with experience.”
Getting Volpe 159 games’ worth of experience under his belt may well prove to be the most significant development from a mostly lost 2023 season for the Yankees.
The New Jersey product had taken just 99 plate appearances at Triple-A before winning the starting shortstop job with a strong spring training.
That, along with the Yankees passing up on top free-agent shortstops in recent seasons, elevated the expectations for the kind of impact that Volpe could make when he arrived in The Bronx.
There were times when Volpe looked like he had turned the corner offensively.
From the time in mid-June when he made a tweak to close his stance, like he had in the minors, to Sept. 2, he hit .250 with a .805 OPS across 66 games.
But he appeared to run out of gas late as he played out the longest season of his pro career, with a quiet September (batting .163 with a .482 OPS) marking the worst month of his season.
Still, if the Yankees are going to get back on track next season, they need a more consistent Volpe to play a key part in it.
“There’s so much work to do for me personally,” said Volpe, who finished with a .666 OPS and 21 home runs. “I don’t think there’s a 22-year-old in the world that doesn’t have everywhere to get better. I feel like I learned a ton this season and maybe in a couple weeks, start to break everything down and get to work.”
When Volpe was coming up through the minor leagues, he was known as a hitter who could smack line drives to all fields, but seemed to get away from that too often this season.
He pulled 46.7 percent of his batted balls, according to Baseball Savant, which was the 13th-highest mark among qualified hitters.
Volpe’s 167 strikeouts were also tied for the 17th-most in the majors, with breaking pitches down and away often giving him trouble.
“I think when I first got up here, it looked like Volpe was trying to go to the game [instead of letting it come to him],” Casey said. “Sometimes the swing was a little too big or it was a little — maybe not getting the pitch that he wants. I think he’s starting to learn the body of an at-bat. There’s a way to take an at-bat up here that you can’t just — you gotta hunt a zone.”
Still, the Yankees stuck with Volpe and continued to start him almost every day.
Now they have to hope that experience of being able to fail and learn at the big-league level will pay dividends next season.
“If he was down in Scranton and being an All-Star, that’s not helping [him],” Casey said. “For a guy like that — I hope he wins the Gold Glove, I really think he’s the best shortstop in the game — but it’s invaluable for him to be here and to have the struggles. Have the ups and downs. Use adversity to your advantage at the end of the day.”
While the Yankees believe Volpe is capable of making the necessary physical adjustments, they also continue to rave about his makeup to help him get there.
“The game’s tough, so some things that he’s had to overcome and some things that have challenged him this year and will continue to in the future,” ace Gerrit Cole said. “But the foundation of how he goes about his business leads me to believe that he’ll be able to adjust and counter-adjust as things move forward. Certainly has great baseball awareness. His acumen is just off the charts.”
In addition to Volpe, Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo and Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor were also named Gold Glove finalists.
Volpe was joined by Corey Seager and Carlos Correa as AL shortstop finalists.
Lindor’s competition for NL shortstop is Dansby Swanson and Ezequiel Tovar.
Rizzo’s fellow finalists at AL first base are Nathaniel Lowe and Ryan Mountcastle.
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