Plays for the Yankees. Tiny, just 5'9." (Three inches taller than Altuve.) Rookie, just turned 22. AL's second youngest player (after the O's Gunnar Henderson.) Practically skipped Triple A. Plays SS, yeah, just like Jeter (who, fun fact: Hit just .222 in his rookie season's month of June...)
Sort of a throwback. Leads the AL in games played. (Hasn't missed one.) His beautistics suck - .193/.268/.353 - but get this: He's on pace to hit 24 HRs and steal 35 bases - (hasn't been thrown out yet.) That would make him the 14th 20/20 rookie in history. (List includes Tommy Agee, Mike Trout, Carlos Beltran and Nomar Garciaparra.) And in the wonky category called "Late and Close Games," he's batting .314 with 4 HRs.
Listen: If he can get hot - say - and hit .250 the rest of the way, he can climb out from that Jeter shadow (which Jeter never had to face) and maybe anchor the Yankee infield for the next 10 years. Yeah, Volpe...
So, what should the Yankees do?
Nothing.
Yep. Stand pat. Take a long shower. Show some faith.
Down in Scranton, there's another guy - Oswald Peraza - ripping up the International League. He plays SS, 3B and 2B. Come Aug. 1, the trade deadline, the Yankee front office must show a little backbone. It needs to do something it never does. It needs to clear a path for Peraza.
That might mean dealing DJ LeMahieu and/or Gleyber Torres, two popular Yankees who have settled into career trenches. (Don't kid yourself; nobody will take Jackie Donaldson, and the front office won't release him; nor should it.) Whatever the Yankees get in trades - middling prospects, probably - the NY press will thunder indignation.
Whatever happens, Volpe must stay.
Listen: The worst is behind him.
He just endured a month from Hell (in May, .174) and it didn't matter. The Yankees rose and fell behind Aaron Judge, the gate-crasher. If Judge's toe is broken, if he must miss a month, bracing the lineup will be Giancarlo Stanton's job. Batting ninth, Volpe can survive on defense. He's here for the long haul, the Yankees must understand this, and they must not waver.
Posts
14 comments:
Dustin Pedroia had an awful start to begin his first year, then he took off. Let this kid play. I'm really surprised at the HR total. He plays hard and with enthusiasm something that's rare on this team
He's fine, let him play. And get Peraza up here.
I'd say get Florial up here, but that's a non-starter. No options, no call-up. Bizarre.
Florial cleared waivers once, but now they're scared. Then again, they are idiots.
Bring 'em both up. Release Greg Allen if you need to.
Trade Gleyber Cano for a anything to a second division team (do the Pirates need a 2b/dh?). Release Jackie Assholeson.
The team will be watchable and we'll always have Bonehead to scream at.
Rufus -
Yes. However, Gleyber is actually having a good year (Especially if you don't watch him play every day like we do.) Ideally, he should be able to bring back a serviceable LF and a couple of minor leaguers.
Then put Peraza at short where he belongs and move Volpe to 2nd where he belongs and I'd be happy.
well said ! you are in the parlance of the great prof mearshimer,from the realist school of yankee fandom
Sell High with Torres now.
Team would get him for over 1.5 years and salary commensurate with arbitration.
We should be able to get decent LF or high LF prospect or maybe someone's #2 or 3 ranked pitching prospect.
Bring up Peraza and play him.
This works even if Judge is out a month or two.
With Judge out, every victory would feel like a win in 1973 did. [Break out a beer!]
I know that the Yankee baseball people know a lot more than I do about such things, but then again, they hired Boonie.
I don't think Torres's value if that high. Maybe a decent player, but I think that's the ceiling. The guy doesn't hustle and 25% of HRs are against the old Orioles. I think only a playoff caliber team would consider him.
Why do you want to replace a solid major league player on a winning ballclub with an unproven rookie? Torres is still very young in baseball years and I certainly have seen improvement this year. The problem seems to be he looks lackadaisical. Looks being the key word. But the Yankees had the best record in baseball in May, why screw that up?
Yanks also had a difficult schedule in May. They will start playing some tomato cans moving forward...it looks a lot different when you have 5 and 6 game winning streaks...
Improvement from what, David? Certainly not his first two years in his majors.
To be sure, The Gleyber has improved from the utter misery of 2020-21, when he had over twice as many errors as homers. But there are still constant mental and physical errors, still total meltdowns like last August when he had, what, the worst month in the majors? Followed by an awful playoffs, in which he went 37 plate appearances without an extra-base hit, and all of 2 RBI.
If we can get anything for him, we should.
Yes, Gleyber Torres has had plenty enough time to be judged. He's retrogressed from his first two years. You can throw out the 2020 plague year, but the last three years look remarkably similar. He is an OPS of about .700 to .750. Decent but nothing irreplaceable. The disturbing thing is that he had an OPS of somewhere around .820 to .870 his first couple of years, and he has retrogressed, but with no signs of getting back to that kind of production. And he is prone to phenomenally bad hitting slumps. His defense is prone to making all kinds of terrible errors on routine plays, while occasionally making an excellent play.
I don't think he lacks hustle. He simply has poor instincts on the bases and doesn't seem to have the right feel for the game. He tries to steal when he shouldn't and gets thrown out, killing possible rallies. The number of "caught stealings" doesn't even include the bonehead plays that he's made. For instance, I remember one road game this year when he tried to steal second base. The batter hit a liner to right that was caught easily. Torres had to get back to first, but he never even ran back. He was doubled off first, while still standing on second base. The stats do not even reflect how bad his base running has been.
It's high time to move on. If he's traded now, they might get pretty decent value. I would take three good young pitching prospects for him. Moving him would allow much more flexibility with moving Volpe to 2B and then Peraza can play SS. I think that makes the team much better. And Peraza can easily eclipse that .700 to .750 OPS of Torres. But we don't even need Peraza to hit much. Anything he hits is icing on the cake. An "elite" fielding SS would really help. That's what the assessment is on Peraza: an "elite" level fielder.
Unless Volpe totally craters, he should remain the starting SS. He needs to improve his OBP, which will allow him to unlock his running game, his best attribute right now. Playing time must be found for Peraza and trading Torres is the simplest path. Not to beat a dead horse, but does anybody really think the team will or should extend him? But we need to be wary in any deal - no more broken down pitchers! And what of Sabean, Minaya, Hendry…surely they were hired for a reason? Or will their advice fall on the deaf, elven ears of the twisted Wormtongue apparatchik inhabiting the GM’s office?
Regarding Florial, he can become a F/A after this season. The fact that he passed through waivers early in the season is pretty much meaningless. He should seek new representation and look for opportunities elsewhere.
What I fear with Gleyber is this: a great, juiced-up walk year in 2024, rewarded by a huge new contract and then...reversion to the mean.
(Looking at you, Brett Boone.)
Volpe stinks. He is overmatched. His OPS plus is 70 -- in the toilet. His defensive WAR of 1 is good but not great. The comparison with Jeter is a masterpiece of sophistry: in this date in 1996 Jeter was slashing .280/.380/.387. Volpe benefits from a rooting interest steeped in subtle racism-- he is The Great White Hope.
Post a Comment