Anthony Volpe has done more than just serve as the Yankees’ top prospect this season. He’s also been an innkeeper.
Playing for the Double-A Somerset Patriots, just a short drive on Route 22 in New Jersey from his hometown of Watchung, Volpe and his family have housed a handful of the shortstop’s teammates. Minor leaguers tend to live with host families or in apartments, so the Volpe household is a bit of a hybrid.
“It’s a home away from home,” said Austin Wells, Somerset’s catcher and a tenant in the house. “Their family’s amazing. They’ve been great with us. It’s really felt like my family.”
The setup would have made for an interesting situation had Volpe been dealt in last week’s trade deadline, but the Yankees showed strong resistance to doing so. According to reports, New York’s unwillingness to part with Volpe put them out of the Juan Soto sweepstakes, but the depth of its farm system allowed Brian Cashman to upgrade the rotation and lineup while keeping his future shortstop.
“I don’t know necessarily if it was a stressful week just because it was so far out of my control,” Volpe said. “That’s kind of the weird thing about it. There’s so much stuff going on off the field but you’re playing every single night, so that’s honestly probably the best part about it.”
Yankees prospects: Anthony Volpe’s hot streak, Austin Wells’ return and…
Volpe, ranked ninth on Keith Law’s top-60 prospect list, has picked up his play after a tough start to the season. He batted .202 the first two months of the year before hitting .298 in June and .296 in July. The 5-foot-11 shortstop’s 37 stolen bases have already exceeded his 2021 total of 33, and while Volpe thinks he’s gotten faster, he attributed the increase more to instincts than speed.
At the plate, Volpe has always shown good discipline, but to Somerset manager Dan Fiorito, he’s reached a new echelon with it during his strong summer.
“His ability to lay off really tough pitches, whether it’s sliders down, fastballs up just out of the zone, has been so impressive and there’s clear reasons why he’s done so well,” Fiorito said. “His swing decisions have been well above average, plus for this league at 21 years old is so impressive. Everybody knows his bat-to-ball skills, the power that he has. When he’s swinging at his pitches, the rest of his game with the bat flourishes and that’s what we’re seeing here the last month and a half, two months.”
Volpe crushed his 16th homer of the season on Friday against Binghamton and didn’t attribute the past two months of his season to anything significant. He’s had the same approach all season and despite the start, his loyalty to it has paid off.
“(I’m) just trying to stick to my routine,” Volpe said. “I just feel like if I did that and if I can control my at-bats, swing at good pitches and got good pitches to hit and keep working, not really change anything too much, the results would come.”
Austin Wells returns to form
After an injury-filled first half, Austin Wells is in a groove for Somerset. Wells, Law’s No. 10 prospect in the Yankees’ system, missed five weeks in mid-May due to a groin injury that stemmed from a foul tip. Prior to that, Wells was hitting .323 with High-A Hudson Valley and was rehabbing with the Tampa Yankees in July before heading to Somerset. Through 22 games in Double-A, Wells is batting .266. From mid-July to Aug. 5, Wells had a 16-game hitting streak.
“He’s been rolling,” Fiorito said of Wells. “He’s a special bat. When he’s swinging at pitches over the heart of the plate, he’s doing damage with them, that’s something he’s done throughout his career. Power to all fields, you see the balls he’s hitting to left-center field are really impressive. He’s getting his pitches right now and capitalizing on them.”
Hitting has never been a problem for Wells. After declining to sign with the Yankees as a 35th-round pick in the 2018 draft out of Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas, he enrolled at the University of Arizona, the alma mater of both of his parents. He batted .353 as a true freshman to win Pac-12 Freshman of the Year. In 2020, Wells started the season off by batting .375 before the COVID-19 pandemic cut his season short. The Yankees took Wells again in the 2020 draft, but 34 rounds earlier, 28th overall.
Wells has a good contact swing and has made it a priority to strike out less than he did in 2021, when he did so 117 times in 103 games. This year he’s on a slightly lower pace with 56 strikeouts in 59 games. Like Volpe, the 6-foot-2 catcher said he hasn’t tweaked much at the plate this season. It’s been more about getting a rhythm back after being out so long due to injury. If anything, Wells said he’s been less of a danger to himself at the plate.
READ MORE:Both New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and New York Mets GM Billy Eppler will be…….
Austin Wells (Courtesy of Somerset Patriots)
“It was just really not getting myself out,” Wells said. “Swinging at my pitch and my counts and trying to limit the damage that I do against myself. I’ve been able to stay more in my zone and do damage with the pitches that are in the zone.”
There’s skepticism that Wells will stick at catcher if he winds up in the Bronx, but this year he’s played exclusively at catcher and designated hitter. Defensively, Wells has already achieved one goal this season, throwing out 22 runners compared to the 14 he stopped in 2021. If Wells ultimately changes positions, it doesn’t appear to be on the horizon.
“Pitchers love throwing to him,” Fiorito said of Wells. “He’s awesome to have back there. I feel like he takes on great leadership throughout the team, in our advanced meetings just the stuff that he sees in other batters, reading swings and then also using our pitchers’ strengths and other hitters’ weaknesses to kind of come up with a really good game plan is great so far.”