Yankees hitting coach says the quiet part out loud about Anthony Volpe's struggles

Whatever the New York Yankees did with Anthony Volpe, they are perilously close to ruining the 24-year-old's career. It's pretty much all but confirmed that Volpe isn't the main culprit for everything that's gone down since 2023. He was not properly developed or cultivated.

The Yankees lied to him, and they lied to themselves. They treated him differently than every single other prospect who has graduated to a similar level, but with a fraction of the time spent at Triple-A. They shooed away reporters who earnestly asked about his struggles and if there was any recourse for their grand plan turning sour. They pretended as if nobody else knew the game of baseball except themselves.

And what's that done? It's made the discourse as toxic as ever. There is no escaping a Volpe conversation if you're a Yankees fan. It's hovering over your shoulder every single day. But we can at least say we've reached a point where some constructive action needs to be taken.

People were quick to point out Volpe's historically bad 15-game stretch — which, yes, is heinous — but do we even really need that to drive the point home? His career line is .221/.283/.378 with an 83 OPS+. He strikes out 25% of the time. His stats are buoyed by his performances in the month of April and then the two weeks after the All-Star break. Everything else has been a disaster. It's unfortunate and it makes us feel really bad.

It's now become evident that even the Yankees don't know what's gone wrong. Hitting coach James Rowson was recently asked about the young slugger's inability to find consistency, and his response was bewildering.

“It’s a hard question to answer, to be honest with you,” Rowson told Chris Kirschner of The Athletic. “It’s hard to say why it hasn’t been there because I can tell you that it hasn’t been for a lack of the way he gets after it.

“There is really no real answer to say, ‘Hey, this is specifically why this guy is inconsistent. Sometimes you say that when a guy’s work is inconsistent, but there’s nothing inconsistent about the way he works.”

So, nobody knows why Anthony Volpe can't find consistency with the Yankees then?

Again, it has been THREE YEARS. In Rowson's defense, he was not here for Volpe's rookie season, but he's been working alongside him for almost two full seasons, and it sounds like it's one giant shrug. Were the Yankees just banking on Volpe's natural talent to propel him to superstardom? Did they misread the situation that badly? It's doubtful they were inconsiderate enough to say "let the kid figure it out himself on the biggest stage, he'll be fine," but that's certainly the way it's been perceived. Aaron Boone said many times in the past that Volpe was going to be given the runway to fail and work through the natural ebbs and flows of the game. But that progression doesn't last almost three full years.

It could just be as simple as this: like many minor leaguers and prospects, Volpe just isn't an everyday big leaguer. Either that, or he wasn't cut out to be the shortstop for the Yankees, a position that demands so much more than the average role at this level. Maybe he's a bench player. Maybe he's a backup middle infielder who can play second base as well. Or maybe he's a shortstop outside of New York. There are many possibilites. His career can still shake out in a multitude of ways, and Yankees fans are hoping Volpe can figure it out (mostly for his sake).

But the harsh reality is that the Yankees don't seem to know what the problem is, and whatever redemption arc Volpe might experience has a good chance of occurring with another team.