Jose Caballero's latest 'history-making' workout might change Yankees' narrative

The New York Yankees, without Anthony Volpe until late April at the absolute earliest, seem likely to turn to Jose Caballero for a bulk of the playing time in the interim. After all, we know they love their internal solutions, and would hate to replace Volpe during his personal downtime. Instead, they'll elevate one of their own as a stopgap.

But what if we told you that Caballero seemed intent on being more than just a placeholder who'll eventually turn back into a utility man? A video surfaced of the Yankees' scrappy infielder at Driveline over the weekend, the No. 1 place for improving timing and maximizing your swing.

Typically, seeing Caballero at Driveline would be enough to engender optimism. But he wasn't just there; he was blowing the instructors' minds.

The official Driveline account posted Caballero's workout on Friday, Oct. 17, a few days after Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone's rhetorically clashing post-mortem on Volpe's season. Apparently, Caballero's very first session with the Driveline team — in which they were just accruing measurables, not making tweeks — already made history as potentially the "single greatest" motion-capture the instructors had ever seen.

New York Yankees shortstop Jose Caballero made history at Driveline working on his swing. That'll play.

Of course, Driveline success isn't an automatic indicator a player's about to level up. Sometimes, the swing changes don't stick; as detailed in Jane Leavy's Make Me Commissioner, JP Crawford of the Mariners had a difficult time translating his new mechanics to the field, and has gone back and forth several times in attempting to repeat them. One focused workout session does not make an offseason. The Yankees still need to be focused on building depth at the position by any means necessary.

But in 2025, the Yankees were fairly clear that they saw Caballero producing his maximum value as a utility option at multiple positions. Reading between the lines, they felt sticking him as a starter at one position would soon expose him in a larger sample size. Caballero seems intent on proving them wrong there, and made history already in his very first data session. Perhaps the Yankees are more prepared for Volpe's absence than we even suspected.