00:00Three things with Joel Sherman. Some news today, we broke it at the Post. Anthony Volpe had surgery
00:07on Tuesday to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder. He initially injured himself in May
00:15with a dive. That's his non-throwing shoulder. He re-aggravated it in September. He took six
00:22games off, got a cortisone shot both at the All-Star game and then again in September.
00:26And it was part of a not very good season for Anthony Volpe. So why don't we go through
00:33three things that I'm thinking about with all of this. One, the feeling right now, and this will
00:40be clarified more on Thursday when Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone address reporters publicly for the
00:47first time since the end of their season against the Blue Jays in the division series. But the
00:52initial read is that the hope is he'll be rehabbed and ready to go for the beginning of the 2026
00:58season. We know everybody rehabs differently. It's a shoulder. These are tricky. But that's the
01:05initial feel. So what does this allow the Yankees to do? I'm already on record saying that Volpe needed
01:11to come to spring training in 2026 to win his job. Prove that he could be an all-fields hitter,
01:17a much tougher out, strikeout less, higher batting average. And that if not, Jose Caballero and maybe
01:24Oswaldo Cabrera, some combination of that can hold shortstop while Volpe is either healing and or in
01:31the minor leagues. He has options. I think he needed to come to do this. This injury allows the Yankees
01:37to see a lot of that in February and March, I suspect. And that will be part of this. For number
01:46two, an outside answer. I always say the same thing. There is no shortstop store on like 36th
01:53Street in Manhattan. The best free agent shortstops available are Bo Bichette, who the industry in
02:02general does not believe is a shortstop now or will be a shortstop moving forward. He's not very good on
02:07defense. So there's a question, is he a second baseman or a third baseman? Does Ha Sung Kim opt out of
02:15his contract with the Braves? Perhaps he does, but he's been highly injured the last two years and
02:22he's got a low 90s OPS plus these last two seasons. And there's real questions, is he a second baseman
02:28or a move them all around the diamond player and not a shortstop? And there's no kind of like obvious
02:34trade candidate. Do you want to go to the top of the market and you say you're going to sign Alex
02:38Bregman, who's been playing third base to play shortstop? That doesn't seem like something
02:42financially the Yankees would do or wise to do. You know, Bregman's had a lot of lower half injuries.
02:48He's going to be in his 30s now. That doesn't seem like the right answer. So to me, this is at least
02:54initially an internal situation, maybe something else small in the marketplace, but Caballero Cabrera,
03:00and maybe everyone's just keeping the seat warm long-term for George Lombard Jr., who perhaps comes on
03:08the radar late in 2026. But to me, it's probably more a 2027 thing if he's going to be a player
03:13or not for the Yankees. But he's probably their number one prospect as we speak today.
03:18Number three, this has become again a touch point about Anthony Volpe. And I think Volpe has opened
03:26up enough questions about himself, about what kind of player he's going to be moving forward. And I'm not
03:31here to suggest that Anthony Volpe is going to be an above average player, maybe not even an average
03:38player. We'll see. But I do think we live in an age more than ever where patience is lacked. And I would
03:45just point out a few things. Anthony Volpe today is as old as Aaron Judge was when he broke in in 2016.
03:53He's still a young man. He's still 24. It's three full seasons, but he's a young player with a chance
04:02to get better. It is a comparison I've made before. And take a deep breath. Dansby Swanson, who was a
04:11number one pick, first round, first pick, first round by the Diamondbacks. In his first three and a half
04:18seasons, he played a part of one season and then three. So through his age 25 season, as opposed to
04:26his 24 season for Volpe, had a year where he led the majors and errors. For that collective period,
04:33had an 84 OPS plus, just like Volpe does now, an 84 OPS plus. He was a low batting average,
04:41high strikeout guy like Volpe. Volpe actually has shown more power young, and he has shown more base
04:48stealing acumen young than Swanson did. Swanson, when he kind of got his man muscles on and was
04:54fully mature, his age is 27 to 31 season, which is the last five seasons, including this one, he's
04:59averaged 23 homers and 15 steals. He's been a very solid player. I am not saying Anthony Volpe is going
05:08to be Dansby Swanson. I'm just pointing out that if Dansby Swanson had that same three years for the
05:13Yankees, you would feel similarly about him. And the question is, is there another side? The Yankees
05:20believe heavily in this player. They like his work ethic. They like his talent. I wonder if he's a
05:27second baseman. I wonder if he's even that, you know, if he's not going to change his hitting style.
05:32But he is still relatively a young player. And there are others who have done what he has done,
05:38notably Swanson, in the early years of their career, and then grew up. Swanson's a guy who ends up
05:43with an eight-year, 177 or seven-year, 177, I forget now if it's seven or eight-year contract
05:48as a free agent shortstop. There is an upside for Volpe that has not been hit yet. Maybe it will
05:55never be hit. But if you look at what is available in the marketplace, and the other consideration is
06:02Caballero and Cabrera, I think Volpe is going to get more chances as a New York Yankee, especially
06:08because of the way that Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman and the baseball ops feel about him.
06:13And so can he heal up, be a factor, and then show some real growth, especially in the batter's box,
06:21to become a better player than he's shown so far? He'll have to overcome some surgery now to do that.
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