Yankees fans' toxic relationship with Anthony Volpe should send trade deadline signal

The Anthony Volpe Experience, everybody. Two routine errors and a 452-foot home run in the same game ... in what was a win ... and yet New York Yankees fans still didn't care. They are fed up with Volpe. They are fed up with Aaron Boone. They want changes they are never going to get.

Volpe now has 15 errors on the season, which leads all of MLB. On Tuesday, it quite literally did not matter that he went 2-for-4 with two RBI. The infrequent displays of power don't impress anybody. That's how incomplete his game is. He's hitting .216 with a .285 on-base percentage. His defense is falling off a cliff.

Yankee Stadium couldn't wait to boo Volpe, especially on Monday night when he couldn't make a backhand snag at shortstop. We don't endorse that type of behavior because ... what's the point of attending a game if you're going to eviscerate your team at the first sign of trouble? Everybody should want the Yankees to win. There's a time to boo, but fans have arguably taken it too far.

That's a product of how the Yankees and Boone have treated Volpe, though. Boone heads into every postgame as combative as can be when faced with questions about his shortstop. He dodges questions about giving Volpe rest when reporters bring up improved numbers for Volpe after getting a day off. He tells everybody Volpe is "elite" when he's statistically one of the worst players in the game. He shifted his tune on Tuesday night, but it still wasn't good enough for the fans.

Not to mention, Volpe's gotten completely sucked into the Yankees' PR machine. His postgame interviews are lifeless and scripted. There are no genuine answers. He always stops at truly holding himself accountable. Everything's become monotone and terse.

Do we blame him? Not really, actually! The Yankees have put him in a terrible position as he continues to struggle. Just like us, he has no answers. He's going out there every night essentially just winging it, hoping that his play will randomly turn around into what the Yankees expect of him. Sounds like every season for every player that has walked into that clubhouse for the past six years.

The fact of the matter is this: if Volpe is consistently failing to make routine defensive plays and can't hit fastballs, the team needs to acquire somebody at the trade deadline that will be able to put pressure on him or take over for him when the next situation inevitably boils over. The front office won't listen to that, but it's what needs to happen if the Yankees want any chance of succeeding in 2025 and beyond.

Yankees' Anthony Volpe deserves trade deadline pressure after universal regression

If you throw almost any minor leaguer into a similar situation, you really wouldn't see much of a difference in the production. The difference is that so many minor leaguers who lack Volpe's pedigree and don't receive the unearned red carpet treatment don't get such chances.

Volpe ranks 124th out of 156 qualified players in OPS; 146th in OBP; 152nd in batting average. Of course he's going to make a few plays and hit a bunch of home runs and log a bunch of RBI if he gets the luxury of playing every day with no consequence for his production. And that's where Yankees fans are at. His infrequent successes do not matter. They are more of an anomaly than the norm.

The Yankees believe in him. At this juncture, fans have no choice but to surrender, but the least the organization can do is get some insurance behind him by Thursday's deadline because we are nearing the point of no return if this gets worse.