Anthony Volpe’s BP session and new prospect status will thrill Yankees fans

New York Yankees top prospect Anthony Volpe (among others) reported to the team’s spring training facility in Florida earlier this week in preparation for the 2022 minor league season, which will not be affected by Major League Baseball’s lockout.

While fans might be deprived of 25-man roster content, they’ll be graced with clips of Volpe, Jasson Dominguez and many more clobbering homers in batting practice and live action as we progress towards April.

Dominguez content has flooded social media accounts already over the last two years, but we’ve gotten less than a year of Volpe highlights, believe it or not! Time to gear up for some of the best fans might see before he makes his MLB debut.

Heading into a highly-anticipated 2022 campaign, Volpe is already off to a promising start in many respects. He participated in some offseason interviews to talk about handling the hype. He’s rocketing up analysts’ and insiders’ prospect boards. And now he’s hitting tanks to follow up his breakout 2021 season.

Volpe’s ascension has been quite the story. After being taken in the first round back in 2019, he had an unimpressive pro debut that year and it was followed up by a canceled 2020 season.

Then came his showing at Single-A Tampa and High-A Hudson Valley and the baseball world is on notice.

Yankees prospect Anthony Volpe destroyed the ball during batting practice.

OK, it’s just batting practice. It’s not like he’s facing live, pro competition. But seeing the young slugger back in action (with what appears to be a decent amount of extra muscle!) while we’ve been deprived of baseball transactions for almost two and a half months now is refreshing.

Not to mention, those prospect boards we briefly mentioned earlier? Well, Volpe is continuing to shatter them and might show why he’s the Yankees’ shortstop of the future sooner than many perhaps expected.

Now, every ranking is different, and MLB.com’s usually consistently contrast with other leading publications such as Baseball America and The Athletic, but the consensus among all of those is the same: Volpe is among the best of the best prospects at this very moment. Jim Callis ranking Volpe at No. 1 might not be where others had him, but he’s a respected evaluator who has been doing this just as long as anybody in the business.

If this were almost any other player/situation, Yankees fans might be spooked because of how difficult it is to handle such an aggressive and beaming spotlight at such a young age. But Volpe’s done nothing but back this up, from his play last year to his media appearances over the last few months.

So, yeah, it’s reasonable to be excited about this one.

Yankees’ Anthony Volpe’s hype just hit new level with No. 1 prospect debate

New York Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe might be the No. 1 prospect in all of baseball by the end of the year, battling CJ Abrams of the Padres.