Anthony Volpe is a World Series X-factor for the Yankees

In a World Series where the focus is solely on the top hitters populating both teams' lineups, it's easy to forget that there are other players who will make a difference. Maybe it's 20/20 Yankee third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. or 2016 World Series hero Anthony Rizzo or somehow overshadowed 33-homer man Teoscar Hernández or postseason god Kiké Hernández. Sometimes it's not the brand superstars who decide who goes home with a ring. Sometimes it's Steve Pearce, Jeremy Peña or David Freese.

Volpe, still only 23 years old, has had different careers in his two years in the Bronx. There was a lot of good as a rookie last year (a 20/20 season, a Gold Glove at shortstop), but also a lot of problems (a poor .283 OBP led to a subpar 81 OPS+ and 167 strikeouts). . A winter of much-talked about swing changes designed to flatten his swing and improve contact resulted in a red-hot start (.382 average and 1.041 OPS in his first 15 games) before luck ran out and he lost his starting job in early July.

It would get worse. He completely bottomed out in September, hitting just .177/.220/.212. It was the third-weakest month for a Yankee with more plate appearances than in the last three decades.

The swing changes he made actually lowered his strikeout rate from 28% to 23%. But his hit rate also fell from 43% to 35%. No hitter has lowered his strike rate as much as Volpe; Only three batters increased their groundball rate by the same amount. What actually happened was that the increased contact just turned strikeouts into weak outs, at the expense of power. Despite all the changes, his below-average OPS of .666 in 2023 turned into a below-average OPS of… .657 in 2024.

Why are we highlighting it here as a potentially important X-factor? There's a bit of talk about his postseason line of .310/.459/.345, but through nine games, anyone can get hot or get lucky. Rather, it's about what's happening under the hood. It's more about that … The.

Volpe had 13 walks in the entire second half. He has eight in just nine postseason games. After leading just 27% of the time in the regular season, he is now a good hitter 44% of the time in the postseason. So some of it is simple: He puts himself in a better position to be successful.

That's a lot of graphs with a lot of numbers, so let's summarize it for you like this: Volpe swings much harder, and as you'd expect, his hitting rate has skyrocketed, but he's also doing it with much improved plate discipline. It's actually not all independent; Like most batters, Volpe swings harder on hits inside the zone (69.8 mph) than on hits outside the zone (67.6 mph). So there's at least a little chicken or egg here, except that he also hits harder on pitches in the zone in October, so it depends at least a little on intent.

If you're wondering whether it matters when Volpe swings hard, the answer is: Yes, it does. The limit for a fast swing is 75 mph, but since Volpe has below-average bat speed to begin with, we'll set the limit for him at 73 mph, a mark he hit 13% of the time and in 45% of cases reached time in October.

Bat speed, 2024 for Volpe (including postseason)

If it seems like this really happened out of nowhere and a light switch was turned on right at the start of the postseason, then the data backs it up. Aside from his inability to perform in September, the final ten days of the season – starting September 20 – were also more of the same, with a .192 average and a swing of 70.2 mph. There was little reason to believe anything would change. It had been Months of that.

“The five days off were great, I think, for a lot of people,” Volpe said before the Yankees faced the Guardians in the ALCS. “You just have to get in the cage. We’re obviously here and we have the Trajekt machine, so we’re keeping an eye on all the pitchers and stuff like that.”

“I watch him from the side every day, and that's what I noticed during the off week or the off days leading up to the Kansas City series,” manager Aaron Boone said earlier this week. “It was like, ‘Let’s go. There it is.' I think he's getting into a better position mechanically to get a good swing. For me he’s right behind the ball. His load is better.”

That certainly seems so, but when MLB.com's Bryan Hoch asked Volpe about the increased bat speed after the deciding game of the ALCS, he insisted that “nothing had changed” and that he was “swinging with everything he had.” , except me.” I don't know if it's harder.”

Either way, these are all really, really good signs. So why haven't they led to more power? The .310 average is good, but there's only one extra-base hit (a double) this month, and while not everyone needs to smoke balls into the pitches like Judge or Stanton, the over-reliance on batted balls without gloves is Part of what helped Volpe's early hot start dissipated.

The Yankees could be pointing to bad luck, as Alex Verdugo claimed, although Volpe's .417 average on hard-hit balls in the postseason is not far below the major league average of .463 and he has one of the highest BABIP grades of any postseason Player who made it to the final four. That's not really it.

Instead, it's about the one part of his game that hasn't completely changed yet. This postseason, Volpe has hit a fly ball or line drive 15 times, “the kind of ball that could turn into extra base hits.” Only two of those were on the pull side, and one of those was the double, his only extra-base hit of the offseason. He is 4 of 13 on his flies and liners to center and right, all singles. In other words, 13% of his flies and liners were removed this month, the second lowest number of his career, and there were months last year when it was closer to 40%, such as August 2023, when he . .256/.333/.556 (.889 OPS).

Of course, it is not the case that every hit ball that is not drawn is useless. But for hitters with below-average bat speed and raw power like Volpe — and, believe it or not, Mookie Betts and Nolan Arenado — the pull side is really the only place you'll find power. If the changes Volpe made this month stick, if the bat speed gains stick, if he can do a little more, then maybe we won't just be talking about Stanton, Judge and Soto in a week. We may marvel at the hard-hitting shortstop, who appears to have shifted into a whole new gear this month.