After the Dodgers exposed the Yankees’ defensive shortcomings last October — and reveled in twisting the knife in the months that followed — GM Brian Cashman faced questions all offseason about how he’d bolster his defensive unit. The results were a mixed bag. Newcomers like Cody Bellinger and Ryan McMahon shored up problem areas from 2024, but others, including Trent Grisham and Anthony Volpe in particular, regressed. After winning a Gold Glove as a rookie and posting 13 Defensive Runs Saved in 2024, the Yankees’ shortstop became the posterchild for defensive futility this year, committing 19 errors and costing his team six DRS. Whether it was because of his injured left shoulder or just a crisis in confidence, it wasn’t pretty to watch.
While defense was not to blame for the Yankees’ early ouster in the ALDS this season (mostly; we’ll get to the exception), there were still plenty of lowlights under consideration. In an effort to burn away the memories by facing them head-on, let’s count down the team’s five worst defensive moments of 2025.
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5. Volpe’s two-error day
As promised, Anthony Volpe will be a main character in this countdown. He likely had his worst individual performance with the glove on July 29th against the Rays, committing not one but two key errors. He got the ball rolling early, flinging a potential double-play ball aimlessly in the general direction of Jazz Chisholm Jr., who was lucky to get a glove on the ball after chasing it down in the air. Both runners would score later in the inning.
In the ninth, with two outs and the rickety Devin Williams on the mound, Volpe had a chance to atone for his earlier mistake and end the game on a routine grounder. With the hesitation that became a calling card of his defensive funk, the shortstop short-hopped the throw to first, which Paul Goldschmidt was unable to handle.
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In fairness, it was an eminently pickable ball, but still a play made much more difficult than it needed to be by Volpe’s misplay. With the winning run now brought to the plate, Williams took care of business himself with a punchout to end it. That victorious conclusion is the only reason this brutal performance didn’t end up higher on the list.
4. Volpe bobbles and airmails the Angels to victory
A miscue the prior month proved more costly. With the game knotted at two and the bases loaded with one out, sinkerballer Tim Hill induced the platonic ideal of a double-play ball, right to his shortstop. The ball took a bit of a hop and ate him up, likely ending any chance of turning two with the speedy Jo Adell en route to first. Volpe then made a desperate, sidearm toss to second that sailed wide, staking the Angels to a 3-2 lead and keeping the bases loaded. While Hill miraculously worked out of the inning without allowing further damage, that meager lead was all the Angels would need to finish off a backbreaking victory.
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3. Volpe slings the ball around the infield in Toronto
Physical errors are frustrating. Mental errors are maddening.
On June 30th in Toronto, Volpe made the same one twice in the same inning. After Carlos Rodón tossed five innings of one-run ball, he allowed a leadoff double and was lifted for Mark Leiter Jr. Leiter induced a well-struck grounder to third on which Volpe made a sensational diving stop. With the speedy Myles Straw running to first, he had no play and could have been content with saving a run, at least for the moment. Instead, he made a comically ill-advised throw, flailing wildly from the ground and airmailing the ball toward the home dugout as Straw advanced to second.
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Three batters later, Ernie Clement hit another ball into the hole with runners on second and third. The run on third was destined to score and Volpe had no play on Clement. That didn’t stop him from firing a throw to first and allowing the other runner to advance to third.
For good measure, a catchers’ interference call on J.C. Escarra later in the inning set the stage for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to knock in another pair — including Clement — on a base hit. After entering the inning with a two-run lead, the Yankees ended it with a two-run deficit, eventually losing the game 5-4. It was the zenith of the Yankees’ run of 11 errors in seven games in Toronto this season.
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2. Jazz boots a grounder as the season slips away
As stated in the intro, unlike last season, defense can’t be held up as a primary cause of the Yankees’ elimination from the playoffs. Still, one of their strongest defenders made a gut-punch of an error in the fateful Game 4 of the ALDS that may have been the nail in their coffin.
Down two games to one, the game was still tight in the seventh as New York trailed by just one. With a runner on first, Andrés Giménez smoked a ball to Chisholm that should have resulted in a routine, inning-ending double play, allowing Cam Schlittler to make it through seven. Instead, the ball kicked off Jazz’s glove and rolled into center, allowing Giménez to reach base and Clement to motor into third.
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The misplay ended Schlittler’s night and led to both runners scoring later in the inning, staking Toronto to a more comfortable 4-1 lead that they would not relinquish, putting the Yankees away in a 5-2 final.
1. Caballero puts the exclamation point on post-deadline meltdown
The Yankees’ 2025 Trade Deadline was generally regarded as a success. They approached the end of July needing to add bullpen help and right-handed hitting. The team brought aboard not one, not two, but three options to help with each weakness, in addition to acquiring third baseman Ryan McMahon. The very next day, they showed up in Miami to play a sub-.500 team with their shiny new toys in tow.
As Michael Zeno recounted the other day, it couldn’t have gone any worse. The game looked like a laugher when the Yankees brought in one of those new relievers, Jake Bird, with a five-run lead in the seventh. He gave up a grand slam to let the Marlins back into the game. Bird gave way to David Bednar, new reliever number two, who allowed three runs of his own to give Miami the lead. After the Yankees marched back to take a two-run lead of their own in the ninth, it was time for contestant number three to make his way from the bullpen to close out the game. Camilo Doval got a quick out before allowing two baserunners to bring Xavier Edwards to the plate. Edwards lined a Doval sinker to right field, likely bringing in one run and setting the Marlins up with the tying run in scoring position and go-ahead run at first.
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What followed was nearly impossible to believe. José Caballero, one of those three right-handed hitting acquisitions, had entered the game as a pinch runner. Known for his steady glove and defensive versatility, Caballero stayed in the game in left. As the slow-rolling ball approached him in left, he rounded the ball, put his glove down to field it, and just missed it on an absolute, Charlie-Brown-and-the-football level whiff.
The play was such a foregone conclusion that the Marlins’ camera crew had already cut to the first runner rounding third. Sadly, though, YES Network caught it all in real time. Both runners scored to tie the game while Edwards coasted into third standing up, setting the stage for an agonizing walk-off in the next at-bat on a pitch hit a few feet in front of the plate. Thankfully, Caballero and Bednar (and, to a lesser extent, Doval) rebounded to make some positive Yankees memories this year. But the misplay in right remains one of the most dispiriting regular-season moments this Yankees fan has ever witnessed.