Aaron Boone: Yankees not considering sending Anthony Volpe to Triple-A
Anthony Volpe has struggled at the plate during his debut season in the big leagues, but manager Aaron Boone said the Yankees are not discussing sending the rookie shortstop to Triple-A at this time.
“It’s not something we’re talking about,” Boone told the Talkin’ Yanks podcast Tuesday.
Volpe, who is in a three-way tie for first in games played this season at 67, has slashed .186/.260/.345 for a .605 OPS and 67 OPS+ through his first 250 career plate appearances. He does have nine home runs and 26 RBI, but 34.1 percent of his at-bats have ended in a strikeout.
Despite his struggles at the plate, the manager believes the 22-year-old still has a place on the 26-man roster.
“What I’m seeing is, in my opinion, a guy that is still helping us win games, but I’m confident will continue to be in the middle of helping us win games,” Boone said. "And as long as I continue to see that, continue to see him deal with the ups and downs the way you would hope, I feel a lot of confidence with him still.”
June has been especially unkind to Volpe as he has just three hits in 25 at-bats with one walk and nine strikeouts. But the manager said that while “there’s obviously frustration when you don’t have the success you want to,” the organization believes he has the mental toughness to weather these storms.
“The thing I’m seeing is a guy that is so far completely equipped to handle it all and has and hasn’t changed how he’s gone about things, how his daily interactions are,” Boone said. “...As much as there was understandable buzz around it in spring training and the excitement of it all, one of the main reasons we decided it was time is because we totally felt like he was equipped to handle what may be in some inevitable growing pains and adversity.”
Boone acknowledged the “competitive as heck” Volpe has had moments “where you could tell he’s ticked off,” but he has remained a good contributor who could flip the switch.
“He’s shown he has been able to handle [struggles] and all the while, I think overall he’s made a couple errors here and there, I think he’s played really well defensively, he’s obviously great on the bases, he’s gotten big hits for us, he’s hit with some power – he’s on pace to hit over 20 home runs,” the manager said. “So, all of the sudden you get rolling, literally, four or five, six games you take off a little bit now all the sudden you’re over .200 and the narrative changes like that.”
There are some advanced stats that support Boone. Volpe's expected batting average, expected slugging percentage, and expected weighted on-base average are all higher than his actual totals, per Statcast, indicating some bad luck for the shortstop.
Volpe is also in the 51st percentile for exit velocity, 59th percentile for hard hit percentage and 61st percentile for barrel percentage, all average, but not catastrophic numbers.
However, out of 263 qualified batters, the shortstop's expected batting average ranks 230th, his expected slugging 173rd, and his expected weighted on-base 202nd in all of baseball.
“So the biggest thing is, it’s so subtle,” Boone said. “Because I believe, his DNA is control the strike zone… I feel like in the last week he’s starting to get back to a little bit of control the zone where I see some discipline within there, but then there’s still a little bit of expansion. And it’s such a fine line.”
The manager added: “Now you’re facing the best in the world for the first time, full boar every day, and they’re great at attacking, not only using their strengths but also understanding weaknesses and where to find holes and going to attack those things. That’s the adjustment phase of things, is plugging some of the holes, but also hitting comes down to really being able to take advantage of the mistakes and controlling the strike zone.”
