This vital Yankees player can finally silence his haters. Will he do it? | Klapisch

It won’t be long before the curtain rises on the third act of Anthony Volpe’s career. Depending on who you ask, the 24-year-old is destined for a comeback for the ages – or more of the same under-performance that would likely spell the end of his time in pinstripes. The Yankees have so far been Volpe’s biggest boosters, insisting the everyday job at shortstop has always been his, injured or not.

But scouts are less certain. The fans are equally skeptical. Volpe will become a target if he struggles in his first 50 at-bats.

I posed the question to Willie Randolph . He’s known Volpe since he was a teenager at Delbarton and worked with him as a guest instructor in spring training. Randolph is one of the franchise’s experts in succeeding in front of tough Bronx crowds.

Randolph is also joining the YES Network as a post-game analyst. He’s been around since the 1970s and can, in the same conversation, trot out a Reggie Jackson anecdote, diagnose Aaron Judge’s swing and tell us what to look for in Volpe’s career crossroads. “I’ll be really interested to see if he’s broken everything down after getting hurt and decided, ‘I’ve got to have a different approach at the plate,’” Randolph said in a telephone interview this week.