Sport: Baseball
Born: April 28, 2001
Town: Watchung, New Jersey
Anthony Michael Volpe was born April 28, 2001 in New York City and grew up in Watchung. He is Italian-American on his father’s side and Filipino-American on his mother’s side. His parents, both doctors, moved the family to New Jersey when Anthony was 10. Anthony attended dozens of Yankee games as a boy and was big fan of the Bronx Bombers. He developed into an excellent all-around athlete after enrolling at the Delbarton School and became star of Bruce Shatel’s Green Wave baseball team. Delbarton won state titles in Anthony’s sophomore and senior years. As a senior in 2019, he was one of four all-conference players on the team, along with pitchers Jack Leiter (son of Al Leiter) and Shawn Rapp, and fellow infielder Kyle Vinci. Anthony batted .488 with 17 stolen bases. He and Leiter split various New Jersey Player of the Year honors and both committed to Vanderbilt.
In the June 2019 draft, the Yankees selected Anthony with the 30th pick. He decided to go right into pro ball and appeared in 34 games his first summer. There was no minor-league ball in 2020 due to the pandemic, so Anthony put extra effort into strength training, adding raw power to his already-blinding speed. In 2021, he began in Low-A ball but after two months the organization promoted him a level and he finished the year with 27 homers and 33 steals. In 2022, he spent most of the year close to home with the Double-A Somerset Patriots and was selected to play in the Futures Game. He demonstrated advanced glove work and hit .251. Anthony finished the year at Triple-A with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders.
The Yankees had a pair of good young shortstops in camp in 2023, Oswaldo Peraza and Isiah Kiner-Falefa, both of whom had postseason experience. The plan was for Anthony to get a full season of experience at AAA and then compete for the starting job in 2024. That plan went out the window, however, when he had a torrid spring and convinced the team that he was ready for primetime. He opened the year as the starter and flashed his speed immediately, swiping bases in each of his three big-league games. In an April game against the Twins, 20-year-old Anthony blasted a leadoff homer off of Louie Varland. Aaron Judge, batting second, homered to right for back-to-back jacks to start a game.
What Anthony lacked in experience he was often able to make up for with his speed. He began 2023 stealing 13 bases in a row to break a team record set by Joe DiMaggio in 1936. Anthony also became the first rookie shortstop to hit a grand slam for the Yankees—and the youngest-ever Yankee to hit a grand slam in Yankee Stadium.
Pitchers were able to exploit the holes in Anthony’s swing during the year, driving his average down to .209. But he was able to make adjustments and finished the year with 21 homers and 60 RBIs to go with 24 stolen bases, turning in a 20-20 rookie season. Anthony’s 21 round-trippers also eclipsed Tom Tresh’s record for Yankee shortstops. Although the team had a disappointing 80–82 season full of miscues, no one was complaining about Anthony’s glove. He ranked among the league’s top two or three defensive players at his position.