Today came the news that New York Yankees’ shortstop Anthony Volpe had surgery to repair a partially torn labrum in his left shoulder. The news does not come as a shock as there were rumors of an issue involving his shoulder for most of the 2025 season. However, the question is, why did it take so long for Volpe to have the surgery?
The origin of this goes back to May 3rd in which Volpe heard a pop in his shoulder during a game against the Tampa Bay Rays. An MRI and X-rays revealed “good news” and, after sitting out the next contest, he returned to the lineup on May 5. You know what happened after that. Volpe’s production both at bat and in the field suffered dramatically. As the Yanks swooned during the Summer, Volpe became the face of the team’s struggles. He was booed at Yankee Stadium and vilified on sports talk radio. He rallied briefly in September after a second cortisone shot and even homered in the Wild Card round against the Red Sox. But he was miserable in the Blue Jays series, striking out 11 times in 15 at bats. Now we have to wonder, how much of his season struggles do we put on him or on the organization for not sitting him down right after the initial injury?
Perhaps Volpe said in the two weeks or so after the injury that he was fine. Once his struggles continued, the Yankees should have been the ones to make him sit down. Protect the athlete from himself, the saying goes. Instead, Volpe went out there game after game, clearly (we now know) less than 100%. His failings at the plate carried over onto the field where even routine plays became an adventure. I thought that he should have been sent down to the Minors to get a reset. The Mets did that with Francisco Alvarez. However, based on what we know with the severity of the injury, he needed a trip to the Injured List. Instead, the guy suffered every day, probably too prideful to say, “hey, I don’t think I am quite right”. Maybe he was fearful that having surgery during the season would end his season. That’s his fault for not addressing it sooner. But it is also the organization’s fault for not forcing him to take a couple of weeks off.
Sometimes, organizations ruin players. Anthony Volpe having the surgery in June would have saved him the agony of a terrible season. The injury provides a plausible explanation for his struggles. However, do we still think he is capable of being the everyday shortstop? He regressed badly in 2025. Was it the shoulder or was it the player? Thanks to the delay by both player and team, that question is difficult to answer.
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