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By Zach Pressnell
Contributing Sports Writer
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The New York Yankees have a massive Anthony Volpe problem.
Volpe has struggled at the plate for a while now, and he ranks near the bottom of the league in a lot of offensive stats. To make matters worse, he's also fielding as poorly as any infielder in baseball, just a few short years after winning the Gold Glove award in the American League.
Clearly, the Yankees need to do something about this, but they haven't taken much action.
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Bleacher Report's Zachary Rymer recently called manager Aaron Boone "characteristically clueless" when it comes to the handling of the deteriorating Volpe situation.
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"There are times when it's fair to criticize Yankees fans for being too hard on their own," Rymer wrote. "They booed Aaron Judge just last April. Perhaps that helped motivate him to go on and win another MVP award, but a simpler explanation is that he's literally Aaron Judge, and the boos were ill-deserved in the first place.
"The situation with Volpe is different. Yankees fans have every right to boo him, as his poor play is invariably tied to the million-dollar question: 'Why are we being made to watch this?' That Boone went from bending that far over backwards for Volpe to benching him two days later is good for laughs, if nothing else. Even then, the manager was still lauding him as 'mentally tough and totally wired to handle all of the things that go with being a big leaguer in this city.'"
Boone is one of the more hated Yankees right now. The fan base finds a way to blame him for every possible mistake in the Bronx, even if he had no hand in it whatsoever.
With Volpe, it might be time to bench him for a little bit. But Boone sees him as one of the team's best nine hitters. With the Yankees in a pennant race, it's impossible to justify benching your starting shortstop.
It's a tough spot for the Yankees manager to be in.
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