1 ANTHONY VOLPE SS
Hitting: 60 Power: 60 Speed: 55 Fielding: 50 Arm: 45 BA Grade: 65 Risk: High
Born: April 28, 2001. B-T: R-R. HT: 5-11. WT: 180.
Drafted: HS—Morristown, N.J., 2019 (1st round).
Signed by: Matt Hyde.
TRACK RECORD: Volpe had a standout senior season in 2019 at Delbarton High, the New Jersey program where he was teammates with fellow future first-rounder Jack Leiter. The Yankees believed enough in both Volpe’s performance and makeup that they spent their first-round pick and a bonus of $2,740,300 to keep him from a commitment to Vanderbilt. His pro debut was hampered by a case of mononucleosis that muted his performance at Rookie-level Pulaski. Then the pandemic happened, and Volpe spent the season working remotely to up his game. When he re-emerged in 2021, he looked like a player with the potential to be the team’s shortstop of the future. When the Yankees passed on signing free agents Carlos Correa or Trevor Story following the 2021 season, those thoughts were reinforced. Now, it was on Volpe to produce an encore. After a winter of training that included a stop at Wake Forest’s pitching lab to help strengthen his throwing arm, Volpe got his first upper-level test when he was assigned to Double-A Somerset. Volpe stumbled out of the blocks in April but turned it on thereafter. From May 1 until the close of the season, the 21-year-old hit .268/.356/.493 in a tenure split between Double-A and Triple-A. He closed the first half of the season with a walk-off home run that sent Somerset to the Eastern League playoffs, where they would eventually win the championship.
Volpe is the purest hitter in the Yankees’ system, a title he comes by through an extremely mature approach that allows him to pick through pitches he doesn’t want until he gets something he can impact. Then he unleashes a powerful yet compact swing that produces hard line drives thanks to a swing path that keeps the barrel in the zone for a long time. Scouts noticed a few early tweaks that might have gotten him a little off-kilter in the early going. Notably, they saw a bigger stride and a higher handset than in years past. The former was causing unwanted head movement and the latter upset
