Erik Boland: Yankees coming up short in their plan for Jose Caballero and Anthony Volpe
Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe throws to first base on a double play against the Blue Jats on Thursday, May 21, 2026, at Yankee Stadium. Credit: AP/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez
In not committing to either Jose Caballero or Anthony Volpe as the Yankees’ everyday shortstop, manager Aaron Boone brought to mind a long-ago comment by John Madden, the NFL Hall of Fame coach turned Hall of Fame broadcaster.
“If you’ve got two quarterbacks,'' Madden said, "you have none.”
The Yankees, however, seem comfortable going that route at shortstop, at least in the near future.
“Both guys are going to play,” Boone said Friday before Caballero, who was activated from the injured list earlier in the day, started at shortstop in the Yankees' 4-2 loss to the Rays.
Who will see everyday reps at short? Boone answered that by pulling from his verbal quiver the arrow he shoots most frequently: “We’ll see.”
Curiously, while addressing the same topic just two days earlier — but in the context of answering a question about possibly moving Caballero back to his more familiar utility role once he came off the IL — Boone reiterated much of what he had said weeks earlier when the organization made the call to option a just-off-the-IL Volpe to Triple-A.
“Maybe, but he’s also played at a level that, to me, he has earned the right to be out there at shortstop more often,” Boone said of Caballero on Wednesday. “I think the first [six weeks] he played in the season, he was playing the best shortstop in the league . . . It’s important to acknowledge that. But there’s no question that his versatility is a real asset, too.”
The defensive versatility Caballero brought to the roster after being acquired before the trade deadline last season, along with the energy his legs brought to the basepaths, unquestionably was a significant asset for the Yankees during the final two months of the 2025 season.
But Caballero grew up in Panama dreaming not of one day being a utility player in the majors but an everyday shortstop, something he “earned” (Boone's word) with his play during the first part of this season before suffering a fluke injury. He broke his right middle finger while diving back to first base during a May 10 game in Milwaukee.
After picking up two hits Friday, Caballero has a .266/.325/.403 slash line, four homers, seven doubles and 13 stolen bases in 42 games.
Defense?
Caballero made a key error during the Rays' four-run rally in the eighth inning on Friday, but entering that game — even though he last started a game at short on May 11 — he was tied with the Rays' Taylor Walls for the second-most defensive runs saved at shortstop with seven.
“It’s a surprise,” Aaron Judge said on May 4 (with the Yankees close to completing a 15-2 stretch) of his initial reaction to the news of Volpe getting optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. “But then also, Caballero’s rolling. I think the biggest thing is, as a team it’s flowing right now. It’s kind of tough to move some things around.”
On Friday, Boone left open the possibility of both Caballero, who has played games in the majors at third, short and all three outfield positions, and Volpe moving around plenty.
“On days Anthony is not playing [shortstop], we’ll have him working a little at second base,” Boone said.
Volpe “working” at second during pregame drills and actually playing there in innings that count are two different things.
And the latter would be somewhat of a curious organizational call.
Starting with this:
The Yankees aren’t lacking for options on the 26-man roster at second base on the days they might want to give the lefthanded-hitting Jazz Chisholm Jr. — still trying to find his way consistently at the plate — a day off. Caballero and reserves Amed Rosario and Max Scheumann have started games at second in the majors,
Volpe, meanwhile, has zero big-league experience at second. He hasn’t played in a regular-season game of any kind there since 2021, when he started one game apiece at the position for Low-A Tampa and High-A Hudson Valley.
Versatility is never a bad thing, but force-feeding Volpe a taste of second at the big-league level doesn’t seem to make much sense.
And then there's this: If this was something the Yankees had wanted to do, why didn't they begin that process after demoting Volpe in early May and give him real game action at second?
Instead, Volpe played solely at shortstop in Triple-A after getting optioned. That left top prospect George Lombard Jr., who came up through the system playing primarily at short and who recently was promoted to Scranton, to get reps at third and second.
Maybe the Yankees are keeping Volpe on the roster because, long-term, they don’t believe Caballero’s level of everyday production is sustainable. It's a fair thought, as what he’s done this season is an outlier when compared to the entirety of his big-league career.
Maybe two or three months from now, the optimal roster configuration is one that has Volpe as the everyday shortstop and Caballero as the electric utility player he’s generally been in his career.
But in the short term, a player Boone himself said “was playing the best shortstop in the league” at the time of his injury has shown no reason that he shouldn’t still be there on an everyday basis.
We’ll see, indeed.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
