Yankees Monday Mailbag 6/15: Anthony Volpe's Future, Crosstown Trades & More

What kind of deal can the Yankees get done with the Mets, and did Anthony Volpe buy himself more time?

What does Anthony Volpe's future with the Yankees look like following Sunday's win? | Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images

Good Monday morning, Yankees fans—it's time for the weekly mailbag! To submit your questions, reach out to Joseph Randazzo on X or Instagram at @YankeeLibrarian.

Here are answers to four of the most pressing questions that were on Yankees fans minds this week:

Did Sunday buy Anthony Volpe more time?

It's hard to say what would have happened if Trent Grisham had never gotten hurt, but there was a chance that the Yankees would have sent Anthony Volpe down had it not happened. It was between him and Spencer Jones, and right now, we'll never know what the answer would have been once Jasson Domínguez was called up again.

Volpe will be here until the next call-up, and that could be as soon as Grisham is better. It is just hard to imagine that Volpe will be on this roster for the whole year, but with their track record with him, I wouldn't be surprised. He has nine lives, with little to show for it since that 2024 season, when he was just a glove-first player.

What are the odds that Max Schuemann will be on the playoff roster?

I'd set those odds as pretty high. Max Schuemann seems to do everything right. There's a ton of value in a player like him when it's late and close in a game.

There's a decent chance that Max Schuemann will end up on the Yankees' postseason roster. | Brad Penner-Imagn Images

You ask him to pinch run? The run usually scores. Need him to get in the outfield? He'll make a spectacular play.

Then there was that play yesterday where Jazz Chisholm Jr. was called out at the plate, and with Chisholm's guidance as he danced between third and home, he made it to second. Volpe drove Schuemann in, and give credit to Schuemann's heads-up base running on that one. You could see that same situation playing out in the postseason.

Is there anybody on the Mets that the Yankees should be interested in?

It felt like there was a doctrine from the Wilpons to whatever general manager they had not to trade anybody to the Yankees. There still hasn't been much movement with Steve Cohen as owner between the two sides, aside from Miguel Castro and Joely Rodríguez before the 2022 season.

Maybe Yankees GM Brian Cashman just hasn't tried enough to get a deal done after that, but if there was somebody who could be of interest, it could be the journeyman reliever Huascar Brazobán, who has found a home in Queens since the deadline in 2024.

He's probably their most dependable reliever, sitting on a 2.02 ERA in 35 2/3 innings. Brazobán isn't the type to strike many guys out, with his 21.9% strikeout rate, which is just below league average, but what he does best is get a ton of soft contact. Batters have an average exit velocity of 83.5 mph, a 2.2% barrel rate, and a 22% hard-hit rate against him, per Baseball Savant. He's essentially a right-handed Tim Hill who can throw hard.

Should we be worried about Ben Rice?

Sunday's ninth-inning home run probably eased your worries a bit, but Ben Rice hasn't looked great since going down. Heading into the game where he homered, Rice was hitting .233/.340/.395 with a 105 wRC+. He also wasn't stinging the ball with authority in these last 50 plate appearances. He has an average exit velocity of 89.7 mph, a 30% hard-hit rate, and no barrels. That obviously changed with the homer.

BEN RICE GO-AHEAD HOMER IN THE 9TH! pic.twitter.com/mQMtnZoe7H

— MLB (@MLB) June 14, 2026

This could be some growing pains as the league figures him out, so he has to make adjustments, and, on top of that, he is the focus rather than Aaron Judge. I want to think Rice will be okay, but this will be a good test to see how he breaks out of his cold spell. At least, a cold spell by his standards. Most people on planet Earth would be happy to be 5% above average in baseball for any stretch of time.