Three months ago - an eternity within the Yankiverse - Volpe was destined for Scranton, and even your granny knew it. When Campa Tampa opened, he faced no expectations, aside from perhaps a late-2023 callup.
Then Volpe lit up spring training - .309 with three HRs (tied for third on the team, behind Oswaldo Cabrera and Jasson Dominguez, each with 4) - and the Yankee myth machine (of which IIH represents a rogue widget extruder) went into overdrive. On opening day, Volpe drew one of the loudest ovations, and the juju gods licked their chops.
In that game, he walked and stole second. John Sterling waxed delight, though The Master warned that many great stars failed in their first MLB incarnations. In his second game, Volpe went 2-4, and The Master said he looked here to stay.
In a straight-to-home-video movie, that would be where the fairy tale ends - with Volpe's coronation as the Next Jeet, living happily ever after.
In mid-April, the first slump came. He went 4-for-29, his average bottoming out at .129. As May arrived, he heated up - ripped through Cleveland and raised his average to .230, the highest since Day 2.
Yesterday, he went 0-3, with a grounder that, despite his speed, became a DP. He is mired in a 2-for-26 doldrum. He bats ninth.
Meanwhile, Oswald Peraza, who was supposed to play SS this year, hit his 6th HR yesterday for Scranton. Peraza played 3B, a bizarre placement, since Jackie Donaldson is also rehabbing in the system, and the Yankees will need a shoe horn to get him into the lineup.
Peraza's blessing: A terrible spring training (.190) that lowered expectations. No legacy jersey number. No Jeterian whispers.
So... the Yankees face a conundrum of their own making. They sold Volpe as the next big thing, a future star, and he remains a fan fave. Thankfully, his defense has remained sound - (can't say the same for Gleyber) - but if he doesn't start hitting - like, soon - there will be no place to put him, other than Scranton. They won't keep him to ride the bench and they have nobody else to play SS. (Cabrera, a possible SS, is also in a deep slump.)
If Volpe goes to Scranton, and Peraza takes his place, don't worry about the Yankee myth-building apparatus. It will simply move on to Jasson Dominguez, aka "The Martian," who is already a disappointment because he isn't Juan Soto. But Peraza will have one thing going for him: No stratospheric expectations. No publicists looking to make their bones. In that regard, he's a lucky man.
A sadly realistic post. Peraza should up and playing SS (and some third). Volpe might need to go down to get back to who he is and is going to be. It's hard to jump two levels. Let him spend June and July killing it down there and then bring him back.
ReplyDeleteThere is no reason to give up on him.
My preference would be to take the longview and have Volpe develop up here, but there is obviously a limit in terms of performance. For me, Spring Training is one of the worst ways to evaluate on field performance. What will Volpe be in 2 years? I hate the hype machine with its distortions and outfight lies. Not sure what we have on Peraza either.
ReplyDeleteAnd if neither one of them is the answer at SS?
ReplyDeleteShould have been Peraza from the start. He played well last season down the stretch when the Barge was listing hard and taking on water.
I thought Peraza assumed the shortstop job was his in the spring and he just "worked on stuff". Volpe meanwhile was part of the hype machine, making up for the fact that there's no leftfielder and the starting pitching is a tangle of multiflora rose and there's no depth and Jackie and Hicks stink and on and on. Volpe was Cashhole's tube of Clearasil he used to cover the zits all over the face of the team.
So here he is. He ain't "the Franchise" and he ain't Jeter either and the expectations are high ("save us Little Tony!!") and he's slumping badly - again - so he's probably pressing. Let him out of the pressure cooker, send him to Moosic for a couple months to get his head back on straight, and bring him back when they release Jackie/trade Gleyber for a mediocre starter with a pre-barking shoulder.
My take...Volpe is pressing. A major difference between AAA and the Majors is that there is scouting...everywhere. Scouts have figured out how to get Volpe out. Volpe hasn't made the CORRECT adjustments yet. Is it Volpe or our hitting coach? I can see that Volpe is not taking enough pitches and swinging at pitches that are balls. It's probably more than that...but we don't have visibility to that..
ReplyDeleteThe Bad (Angel Eyes) says the following in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly":
ReplyDelete"When I'm paid, I always see the job through", then he proceeds to slam a pillow over a guy's face and fires off four rounds into the pillow with his six shooter.
When you bring up a kid from the minors, you have to pay the Piper until the player develops. Great expectations? No one really knows until that player has at least a half season under his belt. You have to "see the job through".
Even after a half season, you never really know if that guy is going to be Kevin Maas, Gary Sanchez, or Derek Jeter, or Bernie Williams, or Aaron Judge. You just have to be patient.
The guys who come up and start playing like a potential Hall of Famer are few and far between. And even if they do, some of them end up like Kevin Maas or Gary Sanchez.
You need to make a judgment call on whether a guy who is hitting .200 after 50 games is worthy of patience.
Merely waiting on a player in the minors to hit .400 before bringing him up is not a great idea. It doesn't matter how well a guy is doing in the minors, when he comes up to the majors, it's always trial by fire. The final step of development is always going to happen at the major league level. I'm a firm believer in that. So if a guy was judged to be "ready", once he's up here, you simply have to be patient and wait. And how long you wait is a judgment call based on what you see.
I think Volpe should be allowed to develop at the major league level. Sending him back down ain't going to magically make him a better player. He will either develop up here or his major league dreams will perish.
We can afford to allow Volpe to develop up here because the alternative is IKF. Hardly a high hurdle to clear. And Volpe has been better than IKF, in my opinion. So you just leave him in there. At least a half season. Then make another judgment call at that time.
They should be doing the same thing with Jasson Dominguez. Think he's going to develop down there into a superstar? Brian Cashman says he likes his players "finished" before he brings them up. I take it that he wants them to hit .350 with power in the minors. But even if they do, coming up to the majors is trial by fire. If he's going to develop into a major leaguer, it'll be up here, not down there.
And yes, certainly, Peraza should have been here from the get-go. 2B, SS, 3B should have been a combination of DJL, Peraza and Volpe. However you want to fit them, whether Peraza at 3B or SS. And Torres should have been traded for pitching. But nothing happens here until the shit has completely exploded, dried up, and evaporated.
ReplyDeleteCashman is a moron masquerading as a buffoon. And Hammer is right.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of prospects:
ReplyDeleteBA .352
OBP .434
SLG .744
OPS 1.178
HR. 12
SB. 10/10
Looks like somebody who needs to be bumped up a level or two.
Duque:
ReplyDeleteMyth Building Stat is a perfect term and truly fits the Yankees and the morons who run the team. Good job.
I'll bite. Who are you referring to, 999?
ReplyDeleteGood points all around. And I'm afraid Hammer is all too right.
ReplyDeleteBut IS Volpe even that good a fielder? 6 errors already.
I say it's time to bring Peraza back up, and take the pressure off Volpe for a time. Among other things, we are supposedly still playing for something. And yes, ideally, we should move Gleyber like, yesterday. But we won't.
Agreed - Gleyber should have been traded whilst he was rounding the bases on his home run the other night.
ReplyDeleteHoss and All, it’s Aaron Palensky, OF, currently toiling in obscurity at Hudson Valley
ReplyDeleteI know, too many Aarons!
He’s old for this level (24) and should be at Somerset.
This team just doesn’t know how to develop players. They’d rather have Frenchy Cordero and Kokie Calhoun suck up playing time
at SWB than take a look at younger players who maybe, just maybe, can be solid contributors at the MLB level.
I vote for playing Peraza *and* Volpe.
ReplyDeleteDH Gleyber Cano. Play Stanton in LF whenever he returns for a few weeks, he'll get hurt again anyway.
DFA Jackie assholeson, or whatever the dickhead's nickname is at the moment.
Colace on the mound today. He'll have to do better than the last four starts since the lineup can't hit much.
ReplyDelete@ Rufus, Yep, we're on the same exact wavelength.
ReplyDelete@ JM, Suzyn just announced that Juan Soto is not available. So that should help Colace. But I fear another one of his patented blow ups. He has not completely melted down so far this year, although he came close against the Tampons. I thought pitching was not supposed to go into slumps. Someone needs to let Colace know.
ReplyDeleteJudge! Sure wish he could've had a chance at a two run homer, hee hee.
ReplyDeleteWhy wasn't Cole backing up the plate on that play! He knew there was going to be a throw>
ReplyDeleteTonight I'll sing my songs again
ReplyDeleteI'll play the game and pretend, mmm
But all my words come back to me
In shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony
I need someone to comfort me
Paulie O'Neill just went idiot mode on TV...
ReplyDeleteHe just mentioned how the Padres spent 280 million dollars for Bogarts and that at the end of that contract he will be 40 years old. By his tone, he was suggesting how ridiculous that contract is.
Do you know anyone that has a similar contract like that? Maybe he plays for a New York team?
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ReplyDeleteDoesn’t matter how many kinds of pitches Darvish has…Yanks are lighting him up…
ReplyDeleteEven Willie boy is here.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if Cole has enough run support?
ReplyDeleteIt’s the third, so no he does not have enough run support.
ReplyDeleteNeed at least two touchdowns.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I was going to say, Alphonso would consider this a "concerning" lead.
ReplyDeleteHitting. Who'd a thunk it?
ReplyDeleteoh shit
ReplyDeleteranger, doesn't EVERYBODY on that certain New York team have that kind of contract?
ReplyDeleteI have had my best laugh of the day when I read Hammer’s post. He said:
ReplyDelete“ Brian Cashman says he likes his players "finished" before he brings them up. ”
Yes, he does indeed. He also buys them or trades for them when they’re “finished as well.”
Ha
ReplyDeleteSmall Game Cole, strikes again.
ReplyDeleteOut. NOW.
But instead, the burn pen is just "starting to get fire up." For a pitcher who has been giving up homers in bunches lately, has been hit hard today, and has now thrown 99 pitches.
Sigh. Why bother to have a manager at all?
Another five run game for Ace.
ReplyDeleteNot what you want to see from Cole…
ReplyDeleteBoone is an idiot, Hoss.
ReplyDelete8 runs indeed not enough.
ReplyDeleteSo Cole...7 great games, now 5 shit games. How Yankees of him.
ReplyDeleteCordero reverted to the mean last couple weeks.
ReplyDeleteThat’s hardly a bold prediction lol.
ReplyDeleteUp by four. Could win here.
ReplyDeleteWhat is Matt Blake doing about Holmes? This so called great pitching coach?
ReplyDeleteWell, Boone was relatively alert today. And the team hit. Of course, the guy he had warming up in the pen in case Holmes couldn't do it was...Abreu.
ReplyDeleteHey, a win is a win!
King should have been the one to nail this down.
ReplyDeleteCole is the Mussina of this decade. Nice stats, no guts.
ReplyDeleteWhew, turned from a laugher to a nail biter> oh well, I'll take it!!!!!
ReplyDeleteHeld off a 4th quarter rally to win by a field goal.
ReplyDeleteI used to not like Tatis, the few times I thought about him. Now, I hate him.
It wasn’t pretty…
ReplyDeleteCole, postgame: "I thought I had a pretty good game today, all afternoon."
ReplyDelete5 runs in 6 1/3. A titanic home run to a journeyman utility player—Rougned Odor—who was hitting .208 (and has not hit above that since 2018). Almost ANOTHER home run to the same putz, prevented only by his right fielder being about eight feet tall. A stupid mental error that cost the Yanks another run, when he failed to back up home plate. Nearly every Padre who reached base, scored. And Cole's first win in a month.
But yeah, it was a good game. Hate to see a bad one.
Holmes is starting to remind me of John Wetteland - the closer who always had to make it “interesting” by giving up a few runs before finally finishing it off.
ReplyDeleteAnd about Rougned Odor - ever since he belted Bautista he’s been one of my absolute favorite players in MLB. He was a lot of fun when we had him - I miss the Rougster.
ReplyDeleteWhetteland… the Yankees recognized the same thing you recognized. The game plan for Holmes is the same Whettland. Wait for a guy nobody has ever heard of, who is already on your payroll, to learn an incredible new pitch by reading golden tablets out of a magic hat. Ride this for a decade.
ReplyDeleteWhy not? Worked once.
ReplyDelete