Anthony Volpe's position switch looks like something Yankees should've done a long time ago

New York Yankees infielder Anthony Volpe is four games into his new role as a big-league second baseman after Jazz Chisholm Jr. landed on the injured list with a sprained right thumb. Volpe hasn't committed an error yet, and while the sample is tiny, the eye test feels so right. Volpe just looks comfortable out there.

His Jeter-esque jump throw on Sunday (from second base, but still!) was such a rewarding watch for Yankees fans who have experienced the dreadful lows of Volpe's up-and-down season and career. It looked and felt so much more iconic than it was.

It didn't take long for Anthony Volpe to learn second base for the Yankees

Volpe looking smooth at second is a bittersweet reality for Yankees fans, especially those with a quick trigger to criticize the team's development and roster decisions. On one hand, New York's decision to send Volpe down to the minors and learn second base this season has ... worked! On the other hand, this exact plan should have been put into motion a long time ago.

It's kind of like turning in your book report a month late in middle school. The teacher is like, "Well, thanks ... but I just remembered again that you never handed this in." You might've been better off just taking the zero and acing the next one.

If Volpe keeps acing second base — and sustains this level of defense into 2027 and beyond alongside George Lombard Jr. — the Yankees will have salvaged Volpe's career and somewhat made up for their entire mishandling of his development.

Then again, should the Yankees really get any credit for salvaging anything here, especially since it was the organization itself that contributed to this mess? Even now, it took an injury to Chisholm (not his horrid season and Volpe's red-hot bat in the minors) to give Volpe another opportunity. This decision was made for the Yankees, not by them. And it came way, way too late. On second thought, they don't get any credit here.

Anthony Volpe as a second-base solution should have been obvious to the Yankees years ago

Any player evaluator of worth should have been able to look at Volpe and surmise that a move from shortstop to second base made sense. Volpe won a Gold Glove as a rookie shortstop in 2023, but his range, arm, and consistency declined after that. Isn't that pretty much the precise recipe for a move from short to second, if you had to literally write the script?

The Yankees' problem with Volpe over the years, as has been acknowledged ad nauseam, is that they made "New York Yankees starting shortstop" Volpe's identity (rather than his job) and hugged that identity too tightly. It became a stranglehold that suffocated Volpe and had Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman at their most delusional in interviews, which is saying a lot.

The funny thing is that Volpe's never been against changing positions. He said unironically that he'd play catcher. It was Boone and Cashman who were stubborn, and they never actually lessened their grip on this situation. George Lombard Jr. undid that grip for them, and then Chisholm went down.

To the non-Yankee fan, the Yankees might look smart for putting Volpe at second base. But for the die-hards, this decision — and Volpe's good performance at second so far — hurts as much as it excites. At least for now.

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