Anthony Volpe will not be the starting shortstop for the Yankees in the playoffs

New York Post

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00:00I'm going to make a prediction.

00:01Okay.

00:03I say Jose Caballero is their shortstop in the playoffs, and here's why.

00:08I've seen multiple versions of this,

00:11and I think that there's two that are really parallel, one in particular.

00:16Gary Sanchez came up with great fanfare and great success early.

00:22But then the Yankees got him,

00:25and he went from being a very good hitter

00:27to a guy who was trying to pull in the air everything,

00:30and he still had the homers,

00:32but the strikeouts skyrocketed towards 30%.

00:35The batting average dropped to 200 or less, and that went on.

00:40Defensively, everything the Yankees kept telling us,

00:43he's an above-average catcher.

00:46You guys are wrong.

00:47We're watching the games.

00:50Your opponents are telling us he's not an above-average catcher.

00:54Can he frame?

00:55Is he doing a thing you particularly like?

00:57Maybe, maybe, but he's a problem behind the plate.

01:03And those last three or four years, whatever,

01:05Boone kept saying, he's our catcher, he's our catcher.

01:08And then in 2020, they played seven playoff games,

01:13and Kyle Higashioka started five.

01:15In 2021, they played one playoff game.

01:18And again, during the regular season,

01:20Sanchez played twice as often as his Higashioka,

01:23like 100 games to 50.

01:24But Higashioka caught a lot of the Garrett Cole games during those two years,

01:27which is why it was so key for these wildcard games, which you mentioned.

01:30And then the next year in the wildcard game,

01:31Higashioka started and not Sanchez.

01:33So I think you could – and the one other one that's somewhat similar is Isaiah Kana-Falefa,

01:41was he's our shortstop, he's our shortstop.

01:43And then they got to the playoffs, and he didn't start every game.

01:46There was some Oswaldo Peraza.

01:48I think there was an Oswald Cabrera thrown in there.

01:51And in some ways, like, we're watching this.

01:56And Cabrera has started like three or four games at shortstop.

01:59And when you watch Cabrera – I'm sorry,

02:01Caballero has played three or four games at shortstop.

02:04And when you watch him play shortstop, you're like,

02:05oh, that's right, that's the natural movements of a shortstop.

02:08That's the easy arm of a shortstop throwing to first base where he's just –

02:13and it's easy.

02:14Like I always say, like, watch Anthony Volpe play.

02:16It's like watching the Tasmanian Devil play shortstop.

02:20It's hectic.

02:22And the amount of torque that's needed to get a throw off.

02:25And watch – I always say, blessing New York.

02:28I watch probably almost every inning the Mets and Yankees play.

02:32Watch the smoothness of Francisco Lindor.

02:34The ball finds the pocket on Francisco Lindor.

02:36It's a natural thing.

02:37Watch how many balls hit the pocket of Anthony Volpe as opposed to here

02:42or too high in the pocket.

02:44Like, he's not a comfortable player right now.

02:48If he's ever going to be again, I don't know.

02:50But, like, you can't try to win a championship where every ground ball

02:54to shortstop is this.

02:57You've already made this decision in left field where you can't play

03:00where every fly ball to left field is this with Dominguez.

03:03That decision – now, a part of it is bats, right?

03:06Grisham and Bellinger's bats have earned the ride into the everyday lineup.

03:09But it's like, you know, the other day I'm watching Dominguez play left field.

03:15It's a ball to the wall that he should probably get to the wall and catch.

03:18He doesn't.

03:19And then he stands at the wall and watches it ricochet 40 feet, 50 feet beyond him.

03:23Like, he still doesn't know how to play.

03:25Yeah.

03:25You know?

03:26And I just feel like you owe it to your team if you're the manager, the infrastructure.

03:32I know if Caballero plays more, we'll see things we don't like, right?

03:37We've already seen him get thrown out of two games you can't get thrown out of, right?

03:41Like, you're a part-time player.

03:42You're starting today for a very specific reason.

03:45Lefty on the mound probably.

03:48We're going to start you here, but then we're going to move you to right field because we don't want Stanton or Judge in right field today.

03:54And you've allowed yourself to get thrown out of two games.

03:57Here's a guy who isn't even arbitration eligible until this offseason, and he's already been traded twice.

04:02And he's very talented.

04:03You can see how talented he is.

04:05So why have two organizations given up on him?

04:08You start to see a little of it, right, with those two ejections.

04:12So I think the more Caballero plays, the more we might say, hmm.

04:16But in the short term, when the ball's hit to him at shortstop, you're not holding your breath.

04:23Is he a great offensive player?

04:25He is not.

04:26But this version of him is so much better than Volpe.

04:30And especially what Volpe used to do well, steal some bases, is no longer part of his thing.

04:35So when Caballero's on first base, if they're getting on first base equally and they're not,

04:39like Caballero's batting average and on-base percentage is better, Caballero's a real threat.

04:45And I just don't know how you're going to get to the biggest games.

04:49And it's not going to be Kyle Higashiok and Gary Sanchez where you're looking at it and saying,

04:52but I'm not.

05:00Bye.

05:03Bye.

05:04Bye.

05:05Bye.

05:06Bye.

05:08Bye.

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