Yankees May Have Controversial Anthony Volpe Service Time Decision
February 11, 2026
Yankees May Have Controversial Anthony Volpe Service Time Decision
38 comments
100% send him to the minors for the 20 days assuming we don’t have a pressing need at the time. His play on the field has not earned him a straight trip back and 3 weeks in the minors could get the Yankees another year of his prime.
Nah I’m good
Good chance he’s not even in the league by 2029 with his play. Not super concerned about losing him in free agency
it would make no sense to bring him right back to main roster without a rehab stint anyway
Why? Why is this even a topic of discussion?
You care about service time on star players because an extra year of them on your team is a needle mover. An extra year of Volpe is just not a big deal, even if you continue to somehow see him as that “3 WAR” player everyone obsessed with FanGraphs WAR loves to cite.
Defense first ~85 OPS guys are freely available every single year in free agency, and usually pretty cheap.
The extra year of control would be a relatively expensive year for him if they went to arbitration with him – you can’t get a pay decrease in arbitration. There’s a better chance that he’s a non tender & re-sign candidate than one worth trying to cling onto for an extra year.
If one of the other SS prospects hits you won’t even want him around except as a depth piece. Nobody talks about extra years of service time for Oswaldo Cabrera.
This just isn’t an important player to the 2029 Yankees. They’ve already shown they aren’t interested in trading him, and his value isn’t high enough that other teams are going to care about controlling him.
No thank you. I do not want another year of Volpe. Thank you for your attention on this matter.
Send him down and let him earn his way back.
I really like Joel Sherman but are we really discussing manipulating the service time of a guy with a career OPS+ of 83?
Are we serious? Come on man. We’re playing service time games with Anthony friggin Volpe? Pray he hits and leave it at that.
why on earth would you care about delaying the free agency of a player with a career .379 slugging and 85 wRC +? if he were a star level player than absolutely you do it, but he isn’t, and the likelihood of him being even an above average player is pretty miniscule at this point. Hope he proves me wrong, though.
He’s obviously gonna need reps once he’s back from the injured list… no reason to not see him down for a spring training type thing
I mean…he’s a solid defender and was gold glove winner in 23 an finalist in 24. I think he’ll bounce back
He needs to go to the minors for legitimate reasons.
I’m hoping his service time is another team’s problem.
Volpe played so poorly in 2025 he shouldn’t even be credited with a year of service time for that disastrous performance
Why not trade him now and let someone else take the gamble and make the “brutal” choice? Get a righty infielder with upside and maybe something for the pen. Can’t be that much worse and this article seems to think Volpe under team control is valuable.
Nope. Full steam ahead with his service time please. The only way this guy isn’t the Yankees’ starting SS is if he is a FA.
This is a tough one and not like the usual manipulations. Coming back from injury like this, he’d likely get some rehab time anyway.
He’s gotta go
IMO he could use sometime in the minors to improve his swing through the zone
Any way we can make him free agent eligible sooner so he’s gone?
I dont understand those saying MLB would have a case for manipulation because the “Yankees have been vocal about him being the starter”…what if their reply is, “Yes, that’s true, but we’ve reconsidered”. The ’25 stats would back them up.
Volpe needs time in the minors. He needs to work on his plate discipline and approach. He needs to earn a call up
They’d do this with anyone else but Volpe
I think this would be met with a massive grievance from the PA, and therefore makes it super unlikely.
Volpe, while he’s been bad, is still a 3 year starter. He started over caballero last year, it’s not as though Jose is a new addition. Jose is not clearly better than Volpe (nor is any bench piece we have), that would justify keeping him in the minors.
This is a whole lot of nothing. The Yankees would surely lose that grievance, and I don’t think they are particularly motivated to do this anyways. What’s another year of “meh”? It’s also how you get a reputation for being a terrible organization.
We can’t afford to keep his bat out of the lineup that long. Let the kid hit
If Caballero can show that he can handle the defensive side of the position then you can argue that he should keep the job and Volpe should be sent to the minors to get more playing time. It’s even possible that they could be looking at a non-tender for Volpe if he get to arbitration at the end of the season.
It’s not controversial, it’s business. He wants to get paid? Play better. He’s more closer to getting released and or playing a 2B/SS utility than being a guaranteed SS at this point.
i think this simply comes down to how well Caballero is doing filling in a SS. Volpe almost certainly will go on a “rehab” stint in the minors, but when that time is up, if the Yanks are as the top of the East and Caballero is doing well, I think Volpe will get sent to AAA until July, and then the team will re-evaluate at that point. If Volpe plays as well there as he did previous to his first call up, then the team will do everything they can to bring him back up
Caballero can go back to being the super sub and PR that he did this year. But I’m excited to see what JC can so for this team at the start. I love how much of a competitor he is and will most certainly “upset” a few other teams, but that is good to have around on a team
Service time manipulation?!
Good god, if he plays this year the way he played last year, he might be looking at a non-tender.
do we really want that an extra year?
Fuck Volpe, trade him.
“Yes, time spent on a Minor League rehabilitation assignment counts as Major League service time. While assigned to a minor league club for injury rehab, the player continues to receive their MLB salary, and the days are treated as major league service. ”
The article says send him to the minors on a rehab assignment after surgery.
But rehab assignments count on the service time clock.
.
It would be a no-brainer to send him to the minors. They SHOULD have sent him to the minors last season to work on…. everything.
What exactly do the Yankees owe Volpe at this point? They gave him every opportunity to break out of the “slump” that he’s been in for the past 3 seasons, getting publicly defended by the manager and FO any time he went into another 0-35 stretch, and never sending him down or benching him. And it resulted in him being the worst shortstop in baseball.
I doubt very much the Yankees would send Volpe to Triple A **only** to manipulate his service time. If they do send him down it would be because he wasn’t completely recovered and needed more rehab/practice. If he’s healthy, he’s playing.
he is nothing special…move on.
No controversy. He played poorly. Give him extended time in the minors to have “an extended rehab”. Get the extra year of control
If Caballero is playing great? He keeps playing and Volpe stays down. If Cab is ass,, Volpe becomes a “spark plug call up”
38 comments
100% send him to the minors for the 20 days assuming we don’t have a pressing need at the time. His play on the field has not earned him a straight trip back and 3 weeks in the minors could get the Yankees another year of his prime.
Nah I’m good
Good chance he’s not even in the league by 2029 with his play. Not super concerned about losing him in free agency
it would make no sense to bring him right back to main roster without a rehab stint anyway
Why? Why is this even a topic of discussion?
You care about service time on star players because an extra year of them on your team is a needle mover. An extra year of Volpe is just not a big deal, even if you continue to somehow see him as that “3 WAR” player everyone obsessed with FanGraphs WAR loves to cite.
Defense first ~85 OPS guys are freely available every single year in free agency, and usually pretty cheap.
The extra year of control would be a relatively expensive year for him if they went to arbitration with him – you can’t get a pay decrease in arbitration. There’s a better chance that he’s a non tender & re-sign candidate than one worth trying to cling onto for an extra year.
If one of the other SS prospects hits you won’t even want him around except as a depth piece. Nobody talks about extra years of service time for Oswaldo Cabrera.
This just isn’t an important player to the 2029 Yankees. They’ve already shown they aren’t interested in trading him, and his value isn’t high enough that other teams are going to care about controlling him.
No thank you. I do not want another year of Volpe. Thank you for your attention on this matter.
Send him down and let him earn his way back.
I really like Joel Sherman but are we really discussing manipulating the service time of a guy with a career OPS+ of 83?
Are we serious? Come on man. We’re playing service time games with Anthony friggin Volpe? Pray he hits and leave it at that.
why on earth would you care about delaying the free agency of a player with a career .379 slugging and 85 wRC +? if he were a star level player than absolutely you do it, but he isn’t, and the likelihood of him being even an above average player is pretty miniscule at this point. Hope he proves me wrong, though.
He’s obviously gonna need reps once he’s back from the injured list… no reason to not see him down for a spring training type thing
I mean…he’s a solid defender and was gold glove winner in 23 an finalist in 24. I think he’ll bounce back
He needs to go to the minors for legitimate reasons.
I’m hoping his service time is another team’s problem.
Volpe played so poorly in 2025 he shouldn’t even be credited with a year of service time for that disastrous performance
Why not trade him now and let someone else take the gamble and make the “brutal” choice? Get a righty infielder with upside and maybe something for the pen. Can’t be that much worse and this article seems to think Volpe under team control is valuable.
Nope. Full steam ahead with his service time please. The only way this guy isn’t the Yankees’ starting SS is if he is a FA.
This is a tough one and not like the usual manipulations. Coming back from injury like this, he’d likely get some rehab time anyway.
He’s gotta go
IMO he could use sometime in the minors to improve his swing through the zone
Any way we can make him free agent eligible sooner so he’s gone?
I dont understand those saying MLB would have a case for manipulation because the “Yankees have been vocal about him being the starter”…what if their reply is, “Yes, that’s true, but we’ve reconsidered”. The ’25 stats would back them up.
Volpe needs time in the minors. He needs to work on his plate discipline and approach. He needs to earn a call up
They’d do this with anyone else but Volpe
I think this would be met with a massive grievance from the PA, and therefore makes it super unlikely.
Volpe, while he’s been bad, is still a 3 year starter. He started over caballero last year, it’s not as though Jose is a new addition. Jose is not clearly better than Volpe (nor is any bench piece we have), that would justify keeping him in the minors.
This is a whole lot of nothing. The Yankees would surely lose that grievance, and I don’t think they are particularly motivated to do this anyways. What’s another year of “meh”? It’s also how you get a reputation for being a terrible organization.
We can’t afford to keep his bat out of the lineup that long. Let the kid hit
If Caballero can show that he can handle the defensive side of the position then you can argue that he should keep the job and Volpe should be sent to the minors to get more playing time. It’s even possible that they could be looking at a non-tender for Volpe if he get to arbitration at the end of the season.
It’s not controversial, it’s business. He wants to get paid? Play better. He’s more closer to getting released and or playing a 2B/SS utility than being a guaranteed SS at this point.
i think this simply comes down to how well Caballero is doing filling in a SS. Volpe almost certainly will go on a “rehab” stint in the minors, but when that time is up, if the Yanks are as the top of the East and Caballero is doing well, I think Volpe will get sent to AAA until July, and then the team will re-evaluate at that point. If Volpe plays as well there as he did previous to his first call up, then the team will do everything they can to bring him back up
Caballero can go back to being the super sub and PR that he did this year. But I’m excited to see what JC can so for this team at the start. I love how much of a competitor he is and will most certainly “upset” a few other teams, but that is good to have around on a team
Service time manipulation?!
Good god, if he plays this year the way he played last year, he might be looking at a non-tender.
do we really want that an extra year?
Fuck Volpe, trade him.
“Yes, time spent on a Minor League rehabilitation assignment counts as Major League service time. While assigned to a minor league club for injury rehab, the player continues to receive their MLB salary, and the days are treated as major league service. ”
The article says send him to the minors on a rehab assignment after surgery.
But rehab assignments count on the service time clock.
.
It would be a no-brainer to send him to the minors. They SHOULD have sent him to the minors last season to work on…. everything.
What exactly do the Yankees owe Volpe at this point? They gave him every opportunity to break out of the “slump” that he’s been in for the past 3 seasons, getting publicly defended by the manager and FO any time he went into another 0-35 stretch, and never sending him down or benching him. And it resulted in him being the worst shortstop in baseball.
I doubt very much the Yankees would send Volpe to Triple A **only** to manipulate his service time. If they do send him down it would be because he wasn’t completely recovered and needed more rehab/practice. If he’s healthy, he’s playing.
he is nothing special…move on.
No controversy. He played poorly. Give him extended time in the minors to have “an extended rehab”. Get the extra year of control
If Caballero is playing great? He keeps playing and Volpe stays down. If Cab is ass,, Volpe becomes a “spark plug call up”