Yankees' Top Prospect Anthony Volpe Draws Comparison to Blue Jays' Star Bo Bichette
Yankees top prospect Anthony Volpe didn't just earn a spot in the top 10 of ESPN's top 100 prospects this week.
The shortstop was also compared to one of the brightest young stars in the big leagues.
ESPN's Kiley McDaniel unveiled his top 100 rankings for the 2022 season on Tuesday, listing Volpe as baseball's No. 6 overall prospect.
Before diving into his breakdown of Volpe's tools and upside, McDaniel mentioned that the prospect reminds him of Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette.
Here's McDaniel's analysis, referring to Volpe as a "well-rounded shortstop who is above average at everything."
Volpe has probably created the most prospect value with his 2021 performance of any player in the minor leagues. In the 2019 draft, he was best known as Jack Leiter's prep teammate and a skills-over-tools shortstop with no true plus tool. I still don't project him to have a true plus tool, but you could argue four of them could be and I wouldn't disagree. The biggest change is his power development -- in raw power, loft in his swing, and the in-game utility of it. Lots of offseason work and fine-tuning from the Yankees' player development helped this happen, and the scouting department beat 29 other teams recognizing the elite makeup that could help ordinary tools develop into a potential star package. He now projects as top-10 shortstop, a 3-to-5 WAR, potential multi-time All-Star due to the broad number of ways he can add value. In high school, he looked nothing like Bo Bichette did in high school -- they had almost opposite swings -- but now Volpe kind of looks like the current version of Bichette.
READ: Yankees' Prospect Anthony Volpe on Track to Make MLB Debut 'Soon'
Volpe's performance last season played a key role in his meteoric rise in both overall prospect rankings and those within the organization, overtaking Jasson Dominguez as the franchise's best prospect.
Across 109 games—appearing in both Low-A and High-A—Volpe slashed .294/.423/.604 with 27 home runs, 86 RBI and 33 stolen bases. Volpe's presence in New York's farm system alone has created a conundrum at the big-league level, influencing the Yankees' decision as to whether or not they should sign a top-tier shortstop this offseason.
In fact, Jim Callis of MLB.com recently predicted that Volpe would be the game's No. 1 overall prospect this time next year.
An evaluator mentioning that Volpe "looks like the current version of Bichette" should inject even more excitement into the fan base as Volpe rapidly approaches his debut in pinstripes.
Bichette wreaked havoc offensively in Toronto's farm system before quickly establishing himself as one of the best young shortstops in the sport, making the All-Star Game this past season. Over the 23-year-old's first 234 MLB games, going back to his debut in 2019, Bichette is hitting .301/.345/.506 with 45 home runs, 171 runs scored and 146 RBI.
New York can only hope Volpe ends up producing similar numbers once he's ready to take over at shortstop in the Bronx.
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