NEW YORK — With Aaron Boone and Brian Cashman hosting a postmortem press conference at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, the Yankees’ surgically repaired shortstop dominated the conversation.

Anthony Volpe, who underwent a left shoulder arthroscopic labral procedure on Tuesday after playing with a partially torn labrum for most of the 2025 season, will miss the start of spring training and begin the 2026 campaign on the injured list, Cashman said. The general manager hopes to have Volpe back sometime in April, though he mentioned May as a “worst-case scenario.”

“Somebody will be playing shortstop [that is] not him Opening Day, but that’s not a good thing for us either,” Cashman said. “I think missing him and not having him here as an option for us, there’s a problem. I’m looking forward to getting a fixed Anthony Volpe back so he could be deployed and help us win games.”

Boone left the door ever so open for a faster timeline should Volpe heal quickly. However, the Yankees manager said that Volpe won’t be able to hit for four months, and he won’t be able to dive on his bad shoulder for six months.

Volpe originally injured his non-throwing shoulder while diving for a ball on May 3. In the weeks and months that followed, he was routinely spotted with large wraps on his shoulder after games. It wasn’t until Sept. 11 that Boone revealed Volpe had been playing with a partially torn labrum – some of the damage predated the 2025 season – for months. He re-aggravated the injury on Sept. 7 and received a cortisone shot on Sept. 10, which kept him out of the lineup until Sept. 16.

Volpe also received a cortisone shot during the All-Star break.

The 24-year-old first-round pick, now three years into his big league career, had another subpar and streaky season at the plate, slashing .212/.272/.391 with 19 home runs, 72 RBIs and an 83 wRC+ during the regular season before adding a .192 average, a .538 OPS, one homer, two RBIs, zero walks and 16 strikeouts in the playoffs. He also saw his Gold Glove-winning defense regress, as his 19 errors were the fourth-most in the majors. Volpe also ended the season with -7 Outs Above Average, a -5 Fielding Run Value and two Defensive Runs Saved.

With Volpe having to go under the knife, Boone said he did not second-guess playing him in a team-leading 153 games, even with the Yankees rostering a capable alternative in José Caballero after the trade deadline. Asked to explain why, Boone said surgery wasn’t a certainty going into the winter, and he reiterated his belief that the injury didn’t have a huge impact on Volpe’s performance.

“I think, for the overwhelming majority of the year, it was not affecting his play,” Boone said, though he acknowledged there were times when Volpe would dive and aggravate the injury. “In some ways, the injury probably got a little bit worse towards the end of the year based on a couple of episodes that happened, but I don’t think it was impacting performance.”

However, Cashman said that he “personally” now believes Volpe’s injury hindered him. Cashman didn’t feel that way during the season because Volpe insisted he wasn’t bothered by the injury, physical tests were encouraging, and the cortisone shots seemed to help.

Cashman doesn’t think Volpe misled the Yankees about his injury, but his operation, performed by team doctor Christopher Ahmad, revealed “more severe” damage than MRIs initially indicated.

“They’re superhuman beings,” Cashman said, adding that the Yankees didn’t downplay the injury despite public suggestions to the contrary. “The things that bother us physically in a massive way, I don’t think these alpha dogs, for instance, it bothers them as much. They don’t feel things as much. Maybe it’s adrenaline. Maybe it’s just they’re so strong as oxes in so many different ways that it doesn’t present itself to the point where they gotta complain in a loud way.

“As the year goes on and he’s diving all over the place, irritating it maybe at times, it starts to move up the tree of wasn’t a concern and isn’t a concern to maybe it is a concern. It’s still speculative.”

Whether his injury factored in or not, Cashman was clear in saying that Volpe did not have the season the team or the player expected.

The same could be said of Volpe’s career thus far, especially offensively, as he owns a .222/.283/.379 slash line and an 85 wRC+ over 1,717 at-bats. Of the 103 players with at least 1,500 at-bats since 2023, he ranks 103rd in average and on-base percentage; 102nd in OPS; 101st in wRC+ and 100th in slugging percentage.

While Boone noted that the infielder’s defense did return to form over the last 6-8 weeks of the season — he’s right about that — the skipper also admitted that the New York native’s bat has “gotta improve” if Volpe is to become a “front-line shortstop.”

“He understands that,” Boone said. “We understand that, and hopefully he has that opportunity to continue to do that.

“I’m going to bet on that. That said, it hasn’t happened, offensively speaking, to the level it needs to yet. But that doesn’t mean it won’t get there.”

Boone went on to say that Dansby Swanson’s path could be a good one for Volpe to follow, as his career got off to a similar start offensively. However, the Cubs’ shortstop has been a tick below league-average offensively the last two seasons, though he had a 111 wRC+ from 2022-2023.

It was interesting that Boone used the word “hopefully” when discussing Volpe potentially living up to expectations in the Bronx, as the Yankees have typically been adamant that he is their shortstop of the present and future ever since he won the starting job as a rookie out of spring training in 2023. For the most part, Cashman and Boone — especially the latter — have defended Volpe at every turn, even when such support didn’t make sense.

However, that definitive stance gradually softened as Volpe struggled at the end of the season. That softening continued on Thursday, as Boone and Cashman both included caveats when asked if Volpe is the man moving forward.

“Yeah, I mean, he’s right in the mix to do that,” Boone said, making sure to say the Yankees need to see how their roster shakes out this winter.

“I think so,” Cashman added. “I believe in the player still. I think we believe in the player. It doesn’t mean that we don’t play with, on any level, all aspects of roster assessments. He’s 24 years old. I don’t think the New York stage is too big for him. He’s just still finding his way.”

It wouldn’t be easy for the Yankees to find a long-term replacement for Volpe, as Bo Bichette, poised to be the top free-agent shortstop on the market this winter, is one of the position’s worst defenders. Some potential free agents, like Trevor Story and Ha-Seong Kim, can remain with their current clubs via options, while others, like ex-Yankee Isiah Kiner-Falefa, wouldn’t be anything more than a stop-gap or backup with top prospect George Lombard Jr. not quite ready for The Show.

Internally, there’s Caballero, a speedy and valuable utilityman who could have some flaws exposed over consistent playing time. As of now, he is the leading candidate to fill in for Volpe, whose injury could also create a spot for Oswaldo Cabrera on the 2026 Opening Day roster.

In the Yankees’ perfect world, Volpe would likely return and take hold of the shortstop position in a convincing manner. Cashman, repeating a go-to truism of Boone’s, noted that success isn’t always “linear,” and he’d like that to apply to Volpe.

“It’s also not guaranteed,” Cashman continued, “and that’s why it’s fair to always assess what you have and is it good enough, and do you need to replace it, can you find better, and all that stuff that, I promise you, always takes place.

“But I believe in the player. I think we believe in the player.”

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