Yankees’ Aaron Boone shares concrete stance on potential Anthony Volpe sacrifice on offense

The New York Yankees have ridiculously high standards, and missing the playoffs like they did in 2023, simply does not cut it for the MLB’s most historic franchise. The Yankees’ disappointing 2023 has cast a big shadow on the successful rookie season of Anthony Volpe, who is now looking to shore up his weaknesses at the plate as he figures to remain the team’s everyday shortstop in the coming season.

One of Volpe’s biggest weaknesses last season was that he was mostly an all or nothing hitter at the plate. Like Javier Baez before him, the Yankees shortstop tends to sell out to hit home runs, causing him to get under the baseball more often than not. (Volpe, however, has a much better ability to draw walks than Baez does.)

It’s enticing to think how much more productive Anthony Volpe can be if he manages to flatten his swing and go for more line drives — and Volpe himself is looking to find out the results of that change for himself. Yankees manager Aaron Boone thinks that this change would not cause diminishing returns on his power production, as the innate strength that allowed him to hit 21 home runs last season remains within him.

“I don’t think so, no, because his strength is his strength,” Boone said, per Greg Joyce of the New York Post. “I think this version of him hopefully continues to move the needle to where he’s controlling the strike zone at a better rate too. I think his at-bats [this spring] have been really consistent.”

During his rookie campaign, Anthony Volpe did not have the best of times dealing with breaking and offspeed pitches. The all or nothing approach at the plate was geared more towards fastballs; as Joyce pointed out, the Yankees shortstop was much better at hitting heaters, hitting .248 and slugging .479 against those pitches.

Volpe is only 22 years of age (he’ll be turning 23 in April), so if there’s ever a time for him to try and experiment with his swing with the hope of getting better results, it’s now. Aaron Boone has the confidence that it will work out for the best, and this belief might be exactly what the Yankees shortstop needs to break out in his sophomore campaign.