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It didn’t have to go this way with Anthony Volpe. And shortstop. And Opening Day at Yankee Stadium.
When the Braves arrived to camp, prospect Vaughn Grissom (who like Oswald Peraza had a major league cameo in 2022) was the shortstop favorite. Braden Shewmake, drafted nine picks ahead of Volpe in the 2019 first round and (like Volpe) without a day of major league service, generated March buzz.
In the end, Atlanta went with its Isiah Kiner-Falefa, the light-hitting Orlando Arcia as the starting shortstop for his steady glove and kept out-of-options Ehire Adianza as his backup. Both Grissom and Shewmake will begin the season in the minors as the contending Braves are playing the long game with the ability to preserve depth and audible during a long season.
Anthony Rizzo could remember 2015 and Kris Bryant being as touted a prospect as Volpe (probably more) and having a scintillating spring like Volpe (definitely more). The Cubs still sent him down to begin the year, almost certainly to manipulate his service time (though an arbitrator found against that).
But the new collective bargaining agreement has legislation to discourage such manipulation. Still, the Yankees could have kept Volpe down to open the season and, unless he finished top two in the AL Rookie of the Year voting in 2023, they would have essentially gotten seven years of service before free agency rather than six.
Instead, the Yankees really did hold a fair shortstop competition this spring.
Volpe won it.
He did this not just with good statistics — 1.064 OPS, three homers, 5-for-5 in steals. But with something more vital at a time of year when stats can be so small-sample deceiving. He looked like he belonged. He was not out of his element. The opposite — this was his element.
