Yankees Mag: Talk of the Town

Yankees fans have been talking about Anthony Volpe for a long time now, ever since he was selected in the first round of the 2019 Draft. It can be easy to forget that, for as long as he has been part of the conversation, the third-year shortstop is still just 24 years old. Yet Volpe has already done enough to make that conversation easily turn from his potential to his accomplishments.

Every player who has had a great career has reached this same inflection point, and like all of them, Volpe knows that the key is staying in the present. He’s reluctant to dwell too much on the past, to wax poetic about the things that have gone right in his first two years with the Yankees. And he’d rather not delve too deep into what he needs to do in order to improve in the future.

But on a quiet morning in Tampa, Fla., after spending an hour taking batting practice on a back field at the Yankees’ training complex and even more time fielding ground balls, Volpe opened up about the emotions stemming from his most triumphant experiences thus far.

Last October, a 23-year-old Volpe took the field at Yankee Stadium for Game 1 of the 2024 American League Division Series against Kansas City — his first postseason appearance. Under the same bright lights beneath which he cheered on the Yankees as a young fan, Volpe was living out a one-in-a-million fantasy. The kid who was born in Manhattan and grew up in Watchung, New Jersey, rooting for the Bronx Bombers was now playing an important role in the team’s October fortunes. He was doing precisely what he always dreamed of, in exactly the place where he dreamed of doing it.

“It was surreal,” Volpe said. “It was something I had worked my whole life for. It was the peak of so many things. Getting a taste of that was the best feeling you can have when you’re in it.”

While the Yankees’ 2024 postseason run had its own set of unforgettable memories, it didn’t finish with a parade, and for Volpe, the days that followed his team’s loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Fall Classic were an important time of reflection. Before starting a rigorous offseason program, he spent time with his family and put the whirlwind season in perspective.

“I was able to decompress,” he said. “There was a very emotional and raw reaction for a couple of days after the World Series. But when I stepped back and looked at it from 1,000 feet above, I realized that I learned a lot. Through everything, you really do learn from your success and your failures. I feel like that is the only thing you can do. I just tried to be positive about everything.”

There was certainly a lot for Volpe to be proud of, even in the wake of a final game that the shortstop and his teammates would rather forget. Up until that brutal end, like his pinstriped heroes from the past, he found a way to elevate his game in the month when it matters most. In his first October action, Volpe batted .286, collecting 14 hits in 14 games, and — buoyed by 10 walks — posted an on-base percentage of .407.

When discussing his shortstop’s impressive postseason, manager Aaron Boone reflected on the ways Volpe prepared for his maiden voyage. Following a sophomore campaign in which he batted .243, Volpe was determined to turn a lackluster September into a productive October. With several days off in between the end of the regular season and the start of the ALDS, Volpe built upon an already solid foundation of hard work, showing up at Yankee Stadium long before team workouts and working to find his stroke, one swing at a time.

“I always go back to the week leading into the postseason, where I just felt like, mechanically, he made some awesome adjustments that carried into the postseason, results-wise,” Boone said. “It’s hard to imagine anyone working any harder than he did, especially after playing more than 150 games in the previous seven months. He just took matters into his own hands.

“The postseason that Anthony put together — he was one of our best hitters, night in and night out — that was impressive, especially for a player who had never experienced it before. Consistent at-bat after consistent at-bat. As good as he was, he was actually unlucky at times. It could have been better based on the way he was swinging the bat.”

Based on all that he had observed over the last three seasons, Aaron Judge wasn’t surprised with the way Volpe performed in his first fall action.

“One thing that made it easy for him was that he didn’t treat the postseason — starting with the ALDS — any differently than he approached the opening week of the regular season or a game in July or August,” Judge said. “When you bring the same intensity to a game on June 2 as you would if it was Game 1 of the World Series, then when you actually get to the World Series, it’s going to feel like any other game against a team that we played in the regular season. It was no big deal for him; he was able to just go out and do his job.

“At such a young age, he does an amazing job of just bringing it every single day. When you watch him take ground balls on a tucked-away field, you would think it was a playoff game. That’s how he handles every workout, every game in Spring Training and every other day. His practice speaks for itself. He practices so hard that it makes even the most important games easy for him to have success in.”

Beyond Volpe’s overall numbers, his contributions to the team’s most notable accomplishment in 2024 were mighty. In the Yankees’ 4-games-to-1 victory over Cleveland in the American League Championship Series, Volpe collected six hits and scored five runs, leading to an on-field celebration at Progressive Field that he shared with his teammates and his family.

“That was memorable,” Volpe said. “I think any time we get to celebrate a clincher, it puts a lot of things into perspective. You think about how many people it takes to put a team out on the field. It’s a culmination of a lot of people’s hard work. When I think back to that moment, there was such elation, but we were still focused on what was yet to come. Our goal was always to be in the World Series and to win the World Series. There was a balance of celebrating that we reached the World Series and looking at what was next.”

What came next was a set of experiences that will undoubtedly live with Volpe forever. After falling behind in the Fall Classic 3-games-to-none, the Yankees gave the Bronx crowd one night of baseball bliss. With his team trailing the Dodgers, 2-1, in the third inning of Game 4, Volpe came to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded.

On the first pitch of the at-bat against Los Angeles relief pitcher Daniel Hudson, Volpe smashed a line drive over the left-field wall, giving the Yankees a lead they would not relinquish en route to an 11-4 win. As Volpe rounded the bases, his emotions matched those of a crowd — and fan base — that had been waiting to explode.

“That was an amazing feeling,” said Volpe, who became the ninth Yankee to hit a grand slam in a World Series game. “It was definitely the realization of a dream, not just for me, but for my parents, my cousins, my sister and so many of my friends. I don’t even remember running around the bases. I kind of blacked out.”

In another surreal moment after the game, Volpe participated in an on-field interview with the FOX broadcast team that included Alex Rodriguez and Volpe’s childhood hero, Derek Jeter. When the conversation came to a close, Jeter asked Volpe to pose for a photo.

“That was pretty incredible, considering that I once asked him for a photo,” Volpe said. “For someone who went to the World Series parade as an 8-year-old in hopes of getting a glimpse of Derek on a float, that was a full-circle moment.”

Volpe’s dream of riding a float up the Canyon of Heroes was put on hold the next night, when the Yankees squandered a five-run lead and lost, 7-6. The bitter end to a dramatic season left Volpe — who was charged with an error in the fifth inning of Game 5 — wanting to win a championship even more than he had prior to the Fall Classic.

“When I think about the World Series, there’s definitely a chip on my shoulder,” Volpe said. “You work so hard to get there, and then you come up short. That leaves you feeling like it was a great experience but that you didn’t accomplish the goal. Having that feeling stick with me, that will motivate me and push me to get to new heights.”

***

In the two years leading up to Volpe’s first postseason, he had already reached heights that impressed those around him. Following a three-season Minor League tenure that began in 2019 but was put on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Volpe was given a chance to earn a big league starting role in the Spring of 2023 despite having played in just 22 Triple-A games the previous season.

Volpe’s dogged approach that began weeks before the team reported to Tampa helped him overcome the lack of big league experience and earn the shortstop job. In the field, Volpe was consistent from day one and made enough big plays to earn the AL Gold Glove Award for his position; he was the first Yankees rookie ever to take home the fielding hardware.

But while Volpe looked just as comfortable in his uniform as his idol Jeter had decades earlier — and even as he set a Yankees rookie record for shortstops with 21 home runs — he had to adjust to several facets of big league life.

“Learning the lifestyle and finding a routine that worked for me was challenging at first,” Volpe said. “The Minor Leagues were not nearly as glamorous, and all the problems there are really good problems. You’re staying in one city for six days and not really traveling on a plane, so when I got to the Majors, I had to adjust to traveling so much and being in a few different hotels in the same week. Figuring out how that impacts your body and your game was a big adjustment. I had to account for that because the nature of how things are done in the Minor Leagues does not compare.”

Volpe also had to adjust to Major League pitchers, who were quickly learning how to attack him at the plate during his rookie season. Although there were stretches during 2023 in which Volpe struggled to hit consistently, his approach drew praise from the team’s captain.

“I was around him every single day, and I couldn’t tell if he went 0-for-4 and was in a bad slump or if he was playing well,” Judge said. “That speaks volumes about his character and what he brings to the team. He truly embodies what it means to be a Yankee. The most important thing is winning; it doesn’t matter what your stats are or how you’re doing. All of that is thrown out the window when we walk out onto the field, and that’s how he goes about his business. We feed off him, especially with him being in the middle of our infield. Even though he’s young, guys look up to him. They see the way he puts in the work, before the games and after, and the way he plays the game.”

Volpe’s calm and unwavering demeanor was fueled in part by his observations of those around him. Ever aware that it took time for even the game’s greatest players to blossom, Volpe has always embraced the process.

“I love to see how guys get better and develop in the big leagues,” Volpe said. “No one is a finished product when they first come up. If you watch anybody’s swing — even guys like Judge or Giancarlo Stanton — when they were rookies as opposed to now, you can see how much better their respective swings got.”

Volpe wasted little time in making adjustments between the 2023 and 2024 seasons, working out five days a week at the team’s facility in Tampa during the two months that preceded Spring Training. Although his power numbers went down in ’24, Volpe collected 42 more hits than he had the previous season, raising his average by 34 points. While there is still plenty of room for growth, especially at the plate, Volpe made significant changes that he feels will have an effect on his performance in the future.

“Last year was more mechanical, just trying to put myself in better positions and give myself more of a margin for error,” Volpe said. “Going forward, I’m not trying to fix anything; I’m just trying to strengthen the things I do well. And with experience comes a lot of confidence. So, having even more experience, I’m really excited about what I’m doing now.”

For the first time in more than a decade, former Yankees shortstop Bucky Dent was at Yankees camp as a Spring Training instructor, and he spent time working with Volpe on both sides of the ball. Having watched the current shortstop over the last two seasons, Dent was able to relate his own experiences to Volpe’s.

Before getting traded to the Yankees in 1977, Dent came up with the Chicago White Sox at 21 years old in 1973. He batted .248 in 40 games that season and earned the everyday shortstop job the following Spring. In 1974, Dent improved his average to .274, but like Volpe, he also went through times of adjustment. When thinking back on that season, Dent recalled a stretch in which he went 1-for-40, then rebounded with a hot streak.

“I know what it’s like to play in a big city when you’re that young,” Dent said from the home dugout in Tampa. “The fans expect you to play well, and if you don’t, they will boo you. So, I understand all the pressures that Anthony has been facing. I think he’s handled himself extremely well.

“You come up as the starting shortstop of the New York Yankees, that’s a lot. But I think he’s grown into that position. One thing that has helped him is playing meaningful games down the stretch and then playing on the ultimate stage — the World Series. You learn quickly about the pressure associated with being the shortstop for the New York Yankees. He’s been through all of that now. He understands it.”

***

Eager to apply that newly gained experience, Volpe turned his focus to this season soon after the World Series. By November, he was at Yankee Stadium five days a week, working extensively to improve at the plate. With the use of a Trajekt machine — a revolutionary batting cage technology that plays video of any pitcher’s delivery and then spits the baseball out at that hurler’s exact speed and movement from the correct arm angle — Volpe faced pitches that looked and felt like those of nearly every American League opponent before the calendar even turned to 2025.

“This offseason was nice because it was so short,” he said. “There’s a balance of rest, and I was able to work out at the Stadium when there really weren’t many people there. Having access to Trajekt was helpful. I would warm up hitting and then just face all the teams. I would compare my notes from what I saw during the season. I just felt like it was better to face the actual pitchers I’m going to face rather than just taking swings off a tee. I felt good about taking thousands of swings off the Trajekt.”

Soon after the holidays, Volpe began a more well-rounded regimen in Tampa, leading to the start of Spring training. His offseason work, combined with his experience and performance last season, has raised the bar for his third big league season. The entire organization is confident that Volpe will continue on an upward climb, including his new double-play partner.

“When you see what he’s doing this Spring, you realize that the work is paying off,” said Jazz Chisholm Jr., who was traded to the Yankees in 2024 and has moved back to second base this season. “We plan to be the best middle infielders in the league. He’s going to push me, and I’m going to push him. It’s going to be a monster year for the Yankees’ middle infield. I’m happy that I get to work alongside him and help him become the player he wants to be.”

In addition to all that Volpe offers the team with his performance, Boone is also expecting his shortstop to be one of its leaders.

“He’s always had an awesome presence,” the manager said. “Even from the beginning, he had almost a veteran presence. People gravitated to him. What I have seen out of Anthony this Spring, I’m really excited about. I feel like he can grow into more of a leadership role.”

On the chilly Bronx afternoon in which the Yankees began the long journey toward what the organization hopes will be a return to the Fall Classic, Volpe started off the 2025 campaign just the way he wanted to, authoring another signature moment in a career narrative that is becoming more about what he has done rather than what he might do.

On Opening Day at Yankee Stadium on March 27, Volpe launched a 1-1 pitch from Brewers starter Freddy Peralta into the right-field bleachers to give his team a 2-0 lead in the second inning.

“That was huge for us,” Judge said after the team’s victory. “It seems like he has just kept the momentum going from last year. He’s going to be a big part of what we are able to do this season.”

There’s something special about turning boyhood wonder into an adult’s reality. So few players ever get to suit up for the team they grew up supporting. And while some, like Gerrit Cole, choose their own adventure during free agency, the idea of being drafted by your favorite team is the ultimate in karmic destiny. And it’s not just the emotional experience; like many of Volpe’s teammates, Judge believes that the shortstop’s love for the Yankees and his dream of playing for the team is a key aspect of his overall profile, something that has made him even more motivated to thrive in the Bronx.

“We know that he has bled pinstripes ever since he was born, and we see that passion out of him and his family,” Judge said. “I think that is the most important thing about the Yankees; we have a bunch of guys who want to be here, who are proud of this organization and are proud to wear this jersey. He’s a prime example of that. He’s a kid that had a dream, who watched the Yankees his whole life and wanted to play here. He went out there and chased it down. It’s incredible.”

Volpe hasn’t been in pinstripes for long, but he has established himself as a player that embodies what the Yankees are all about. And he’s quickly building a legacy that people will be talking about for years to come.

Alfred Santasiere III is the editor-in-chief of Yankees Magazine. This story appears in the May 2025 edition. Get more articles like this delivered to your doorstep by purchasing a subscription to Yankees Magazine at www.yankees.com/publications.