Alex Rodriguez continues to win over Yankees fans with Anthony Volpe comments

New York Yankees fans have, at times, had a complicated relationship with Alex Rodriguez. For years, they waited for the superstar to earn his pinstripes, which he finally did in 2009 when he slashed .365/.500/.808 with six homers in the postseason, helping lead the Yankees to their first World Series victory since 2000 and, painfully, the most recent title in franchise history.

Despite his ups and downs with the Yankees faithful, when it comes to hitting a baseball, few in history have done it better than Rodriguez, so when he speaks on the topic, one would be wise to listen.

Speaking of hitting a baseball, the Yankees have been waiting three years for Anthony Volpe to figure out how to do it consistently. Throughout the trials and tribulations, the organization has stuck by his side, and even when it seems that the leash is getting shorter, they stumble over themselves not to be too aggressive in calling him out.

In Rodriguez's view, it's not just Volpe who needs to be taken to task, but the entire Yankees organization as well.

Alex Rodriguez uses Anthony Volpe as the poster child to blast the Yankees' hitting philosophy

Appearing on WFAN, Rodriguez laid the blame for Volpe's struggles firmly at the Yankees' feet.

"[Volpe] really is an incredible young man with a great family and the organization has fallen in love with him,” Rodriguez said. “But at some point the numbers don’t lie, right? You have 167 strikeouts [in his rookie season in 2023], 156 [in 2024] and 150 [last season] and here’s a young man that the biggest way he can impact winning is with his No. 1 tool and that’s his legs. But we’ve taken his legs away.

“And what I mean by that, here’s a young man who has stolen over 50 stolen bases in the minor leagues. He stole 18 last year. And it’s hard to impact winning when you’re striking out 150 times and you’re hitting .212. So I think if you zoom out, it’s an organization hitting philosophy that is absolutely broken, and until they fix it, I don’t think they win big.”

Rodriguez has a point. It's easy to point at Volpe and think that he should have already taken the next step, but when you look around at the other young players on the roster, he's hardly alone in his stagnation.

Austin Wells upped his power output from 13 homers to 21 homers from 2024 to 2025, but it came at the expense of his walk rate falling from a very healthy 11.4% to a subpar 6.7%. His batting average, already an issue at .229 in 2024, tumbled further to .219.

Then there's Jasson Dominguez, who, like Volpe, had previously been a terror on the bases in the minor leagues, yet struggled mightily at points during his rookie campaign in 2025. Dominguez, a switch-hitter, has been utterly confounded by lefties, making him useless from the right side.

With a profile like Dominguez's, you'd expect a lot of contact, yet his 75% contact rate ranks as below average (league average in 2025 was 76.4%), and his 26.8% strikeout rate is higher than it should be.

In all three cases, these three players swing out of their shoes rather than take the pitch where it's thrown. They don't lean into their unique skill sets and instead have become obsessed with power.

Rodriguez, of course, had some of the easiest raw power in the game, but he also made a living taking the ball where it was pitched and hitting to all fields. He played alongside the master of the other way approach, Derek Jeter. He's seen what it means to tailor an approach to a player's talents versus force the same mindset on every player, regardless of whether or not it's the right fit for him.

One of two things is going on here. Either the Yankees have become obsessed with power production at the expense of what individual players do well, or there is no concrete philosophy to serve as the north star and course correct these youngsters once they develop bad habits.

Yes, the Yankees did have one of the most prolific offenses in the game last year, but narrowly viewing their success through that lens hardly tells the whole story. They have Aaron Judge carrying the offense every single year as well as Giancarlo Stanton's effortless power contributions whne he's available (24 HR in only 77 games). The blanket argument of their end-of-season totals ignores the overall development of their young players and the fact the organization values home runs at the expense of every other statistic. For example, Austin Wells slugging 21 homers is nice, but his 0.1 WAR was putrid. Anthony Volpe's 19 homers were also alongside a .663 OPS and 83 OPS+. Dominguez was benched as the season progressed and he hardly saw time in Sept. and didn't contribute at all in the playoffs.

What is clear is that until something changes, we'll continue to see the disappointment and stagnation that Volpe is known for, and it is, in large part, the Yankees' fault.