00:00You mentioned Anthony Volpe has effectively relinquished the shortstop job.
00:05For a long time, people believed it was yip adjacent at shortstop,
00:09like why he was really struggling defensively.
00:12Jose Caballero has since taken over,
00:15but Anthony Volpe got a cortisone shot in his elbow or in his shoulder.
00:19Volpe is having some injury issues in his shoulder,
00:22and that has certainly bled into his 2025 campaign.
00:26Again, the offensive numbers, they look totally fine.
00:29Defensively, he was struggling.
00:31We might have a reason as to why.
00:33What do you make of the Volpe injury as it stands right now?
00:37I have a lot of different thoughts.
00:40One, and the question that just continues to ring strong in my mind is,
00:45why was he playing through this?
00:47Why didn't we know sooner?
00:49Was he not telling?
00:51Was he saying, I have to fight through this?
00:54Did the Yankees know and just not deal with it?
00:58How did all of that happen?
01:00Because our eyes are telling us that this guy is simply not having a good year,
01:09and that's the nicest way to put it.
01:12He was a three-win player last year.
01:14I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
01:16He was a goal glover, right?
01:18We knew he wasn't this great offensive piece,
01:20but at least he would hedge that with excellent defense and excellent base running.
01:27But not this year.
01:28He's been one of the worst defenders at the shortstop position,
01:32and it just kept going and going and going.
01:34And then the way the Yankees would back him was basically telling us that nothing is wrong.
01:40Don't believe what you're seeing.
01:42But clearly there was something wrong.
01:44Was it the yips?
01:45Was it an injury?
01:47It's tough to know.
01:48But at least now, the Yankees have Jose Caballero, who is a better defender.
01:54He's a better base runner.
01:55So the two things that Volpe was great at when healthy, Caballero is better at.
02:00And then on the offensive side, there's no discussion.
02:03Since Caballero became a Yankee, he's been 30% better than a league average hitter.
02:08He's stealing bases almost every other game.
02:10And it's Caballero's job, even if they were both perfectly healthy.
02:15But it's clear Volpe is not.
02:17That's why I think this is Cabby's job, even though Boone won't come out and explicitly admit it.
02:23I understand why you say that.
02:25Caballero is a guy that I have fallen in love with over the last couple of years.
02:29I fell in love with him in Tampa and in Seattle to a certain extent.
02:33But really, it was after the Rayleigh Caballero flip and he was in Tampa.
02:37He kind of turned into the new Edmundo Sosa for me.
02:41For a while, I was saying every team wishes they had Edmundo Sosa, but only one team has him.
02:47And then I saw Caballero blossom.
02:48And I'm saying every team wishes they had Jose Caballero, but only Tampa has him.
02:53I thought that was a sneaky, awesome pickup at the deadline for Brian Cashman and the New York Yankees.
02:58Because what he does is he provides this bedrock where at the very, very least, you know, you're getting speed in defense.
03:05And it was tough because the first game after the deadline, he made that crucial error in right field.
03:09But guess what?
03:10He ain't playing right field anymore.
03:11He's at shortstop for the New York Yankees, and he's done a heck of a job.
03:15This is like if Andrew Velasquez could hit.
03:18Like, I'm trying to think about the Yankee backfill shortstop nature over the last decade or so.
03:24Really post-Jeter, because Didi Gregorius was supposed to be the guy.
03:28Didi held it down for a little bit, and then he moved on.
03:31And then you guys tried to piecemeal it together for a while until you got to Anthony Volpe.
03:36It was IKF for a while.
03:37That fan base strongly disliked IKF, which I find a little bizarre because IKF was totally fine.
03:44Again, the standard is ridiculous and unfair for Yankee shortstops.
03:49But Caballero is providing this bedrock that, frankly, Volpe wasn't this year.
03:54And I understand why you guys would want to run with Jose Caballero at shortstop.
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