NEW YORK — Anthony Volpe has been the New York Yankees’ starting shortstop since opening day 2023. He won a Gold Glove as a rookie. He hit a grand slam in the World Series. He has played at least 153 games in each of his three MLB seasons.
But the 24-year-old is now recovering from shoulder surgery, coming off his worst professional season and facing a question that would have been unthinkable two years ago: Could the Yankees actually send him to the minor leagues?
A new report from Joel Sherman of the New York Post has raised that exact possibility, and the reasoning behind it goes well beyond performance. It involves service time, arbitration money, trade value and a front office that may be ready to play hardball with its former top prospect.
Volpe’s rough 2025 set the stage
Volpe’s 2025 season was a grind from the start. He suffered a torn labrum in his left shoulder diving for a ground ball on May 3. The Yankees initially described the tear as partial. They kept him on the field anyway.
The results were ugly. Volpe slashed .212/.272/.391 across 153 games, the worst offensive numbers of his young career. He struck out at one of the highest rates among qualified MLB shortstops and committed 19 errors, tying Boston’s Trevor Story for the third most at the position in the majors. Only Cincinnati’s Elly De La Cruz (26) and Washington’s CJ Abrams (22) made more.
Volpe did manage 19 home runs and 72 RBI while playing through the injury, and he carried a .786 OPS into the May 3 game before the labrum tear changed everything. Manager Aaron Boone also noted that Volpe’s defense improved sharply over the final two months of the season.
“For the noise around him this year and the struggles he went through defensively in the middle of the season,” Boone said, “I think it’s really important to know how good he was the final two months, which is more in line, defensively speaking, with who he’s been these first few years.”
Still, the damage was done. Volpe underwent arthroscopic surgery in October to repair the labrum. He is not expected back before May, and he will not be able to dive on the repaired shoulder until mid-April. For the first time since 2022, someone else will be the Yankees’ opening day shortstop.
Sherman floats a service time play that changes everything
This is where it gets interesting. Sherman reported on Feb. 10 that the Yankees could have a strategic reason to send Volpe to Triple-A when he is activated from the injured list, rather than simply inserting him back into the lineup.
The key is service time. Volpe has been on the Yankees’ MLB roster continuously since making the team out of spring training in 2023. That gives him exactly three years of service time. A player continues to accrue service time while on the major league injured list.
But if Volpe spends even 20 days in the minors, the math changes dramatically.
“Volpe currently would be a free agent after the 2028 season,” Sherman wrote. “But if he spends even 20 days in the minors, the earliest he could be a free agent is after the 2029 campaign. That matters to his salaries moving forward. It also could impact his trade value if the Yankees go that way because teams are always looking to have more control years when they obtain a player.”
The implications are significant. An extra year of club control would reduce Volpe’s arbitration leverage, limit his salary increases in the short term and make him more attractive in a potential trade. Volpe is already earning nearly $4 million in his first year of arbitration in 2026, a figure many around the league consider steep given his recent production.
The scenario only works, of course, if Jose Caballero gives the Yankees a reason to keep Volpe down. Caballero, acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays at the 2025 trade deadline, slashed .266/.372/.456 across 95 plate appearances in the Bronx last year. Those numbers are encouraging, but the 27-year-old owns a lifetime .657 OPS since reaching the big leagues in 2023. Whether he can hold the job over a full season remains an open question.
The front office still believes in Volpe
For all the frustration, the Yankees have not given up on their former first-round pick. General manager Brian Cashman made that clear in December.
“Do I believe in Anthony Volpe? The answer is yes,” Cashman said. “And when he comes back, I still believe everything that we felt about him before his surgery. I’m happy we have Cabby as well.”
Boone has also publicly backed Volpe while acknowledging the need for improvement. Through 1,886 career plate appearances, Volpe owns a .662 OPS and an 84 OPS-plus, meaning his offense has been 16 percent below league average across three seasons. He has 52 home runs, 82 doubles and 70 stolen bases in that span.
“We’ve got to get that number to go up,” Boone said. “There’s a lot of different ways to do that, whether it’s getting on base more and hitting for a higher average, or whether it’s being more consistent on the power front.”
The talent is real. Volpe was the first 20-homer, 50-steal minor leaguer since Andruw Jones in 1996. He posted a .287 average and .815 OPS in the 2024 postseason and hit that grand slam in Game 4 of the World Series against the Dodgers. He won a Gold Glove in 2023 and posted 13 outs above average on defense in 2024.
But the MLB regular season has been a different story, and a torn labrum only made things worse.
A decision that could define the Yankees’ 2026 season
The Yankees have options beyond Caballero. Oswaldo Cabrera, who fractured his ankle in 2025, is expected back. The club also signed former Rangers infielder Jonathan Ornelas to a minor league deal with an invitation to big league camp. Braden Shewmake and Jorbit Vivas are in the mix as well.
But none of those players carry the ceiling Volpe does. The question is whether the Yankees are willing to bet on that ceiling after three years of inconsistent results at the plate.
Sending Volpe to the minors, even briefly, would be a seismic move for a franchise that has invested heavily in his development since selecting him 30th overall in the 2019 MLB draft. It would signal a shift in how the organization views its young shortstop, from untouchable building block to asset that needs to be managed.
Spring training is just getting started in Tampa. Volpe is expected to resume swinging a bat in mid-February. The real fireworks will come when he is healthy enough to play and the Yankees have to decide where he plays.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
