Anthony Volpe

Anthony Volpe is the Yankees' starting shortstop, a homegrown Jersey kid who grew up 30 miles from the Stadium idolizing Derek Jeter -- and then went out and got the same job. The New York Yankees drafted him 30th overall in 2019, handed him the Opening Day lineup card in 2023, and watched him start a World Series by year two. He hits for power, runs the bases with aggression, and plays a brand of defense that makes you forget he's batting .220-something. That last part drives people crazy, but we'll get there.

A Jersey Kid With a Short Commute

Here's the thing about Volpe's origin story -- it's almost too clean. Born in Watchung, New Jersey, raised a Yankees fan, attended games at the Stadium as a kid, starred at Delbarton School in Morristown. He'd committed to Vanderbilt -- the Harvard of college baseball programs -- but the Yankees grabbed him in the first round and offered roughly $2.7 million to skip campus life. (Turns out you can put a price on a degree from Vanderbilt. It's $2.7 million.)

He tore through the minors like a kid who'd been planning this since Little League. Lost 2020 to COVID like everyone else, then went to Low-A Tampa in 2021 and put himself on every prospect list in the sport. By the time he'd finished tearing up Double-A Somerset in 2022 -- playing 20 minutes from his childhood bedroom, which is almost too on the nose -- Baseball America had him as a consensus top-5 prospect in all of baseball.

The Kid Gets the Keys

Volpe won the shortstop job in spring training 2023, beating out Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and debuted on Opening Day against the Giants at the Stadium. He was 21. A Jersey kid, a lifelong fan, starting at short in the Bronx on Opening Day. If you wrote it as fiction, an editor would tell you to tone it down.

Now, the batting average. Yeah. It's not great. He hit .209 as a rookie, which is the kind of number that makes talk radio hosts foam at the mouth. He bumped it to .233 in 2024 -- progress, sure, but still not what you'd expect from the guy who entered the year as the best prospect in the system. The strikeout rate stays high, the breaking balls down and away still give him fits, and there are stretches where you're watching him fight the at-bat instead of controlling it.

But here's what the average-watchers miss: 21 homers as a rookie, 23 in year two, plus defense that borders on ridiculous. His range up the middle, the arm from the hole, the instincts -- he makes plays that remind you why you don't judge a shortstop by his batting line. (Tell that to the guys calling WFAN at 2 AM, though. They don't want to hear it.)

Key Moments

The Freakin' Glove, Though

I'll be honest: if Volpe hit .260, we'd be talking about him the way we talk about young Jeter -- the heir, the future, the face of the next chapter. He doesn't hit .260 yet, and that gap between expectation and reality is the entire tension of his young career. But defensive metrics freakin' love him. OAA, DRS -- the nerd stats all point the same direction. He's one of the best defensive shortstops in the American League, and he's 24.

The 2024 World Series run was the proof of concept. Playing next to Judge, hitting in a lineup with Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton, holding down shortstop in the biggest games the franchise had played in 15 years. He didn't shrink. (The kid grew up watching October baseball from the couch in Watchung. Now he's playing in it. That's a pretty good commute upgrade.) The bat's still a work in progress, but the player isn't going anywhere.

He's 24 with 44 homers, a World Series on his resume, and a glove that makes scouts forget about the strikeouts. The average will come up or it won't -- but he's already the shortstop, and nobody's taking that away from him.