What could the 2023 season and beyond hold for New York Yankees prospects Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza? We asked ESPN MLB insider Kiley McDaniel for his thoughts.
When the New York Yankees bypassed on the four big free agent shortstops that were available this offseason, much of the reasoning for the decision was based on what the franchise had coming up through the minors at the position in top prospects Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza.
Yankees fans got a taste of the 22-year-old Peraza at shortstop last season as he made his MLB debut on Sept. 2 and would earn 49 at-bats the rest of the regular season (as well as three in the postseason), slashing .306/.404/.429 as a test for what playing time could be to come in 2023.
Volpe, meanwhile, advanced to Triple-A last season and certainly seems primed to make his Yankees debut early in the campaign. McDaniel has the 21-year-old Volpe ranked as the No. 3 prospect in all of MLB entering the season, and ESPN’s Joon Lee has predicted that Volpe will take over the shortstop position in the Bronx when the second half of the season begins.
The future certainly looks bright for New York at the position, but I asked McDaniel recently for his thoughts on the future of Volpe and Peraza and what Yankees fans could expect from them both. Are they really ready for the bright lights and scrutiny that comes with donning the pinstripes?
How confident should Yankees fans be in Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe?
McDaniel on Volpe
“Volpe played on a high school team with Jack Leiter [second overall pick in the 2021 MLB draft], went to all the showcase stuff for multiple years. It might sound silly because a lot of these showcases, it’s like a stadium that holds 8,000 and there’s 300 people in it and they’re all scouts who are just silently writing in a notebook. It doesn’t seem pressure-filled, but go talk to those kids before and after the event and they’re about to crap their pants because there are 300 scouts that are going to dictate their future watching them,” McDaniel said. “Volpe’s been hyped since his big breakout, I guess it was just the beginning of last year, as like, ‘This is like the next guy’ and he has held up.
“He also seems like a little bit of like the agro, come-at-me-guy sort of vibe. He’s really big in the gym. He likes to just try to hit the ball as hard as he can. That is also above and beyond being strong mentally. He seems to have like the personality that would handle that stuff well and give a snippy interview when he feels like it to get people off his back.”
McDaniel on Peraza
“He has been the guy who might be the future potential shortstop of the Yankees for a long time, since like Low-A, and is a knock-down, above-average defender who can really run and really hit and has like added power to his game in a way that I don’t think you would expect a lot of guys to be able to do that are of his background and build and things like that,” McDaniel offered. “He’s shown that potential to increase his ability at a level that you wouldn’t expect the average guy to, which I think sort of speaks to the mental makeup needed to make the improvements.”
McDaniel also believes that the future of New York’s middle infield could be Peraza at shortstop with Volpe sliding over to second base. That may not happen in 2023, but the future combination up the middle may not be too far off.
Will the Yankees regret the decision to bypass a veteran free agent at shortstop and ride with their current roster and the prospects to come at the position? We will likely know the answer to that question by the All-Star break, when it could very well be time for both Volpe and Peraza to make an impact in the Bronx.