Pretty much anyone who talks about José Caballero will at some point say the phrase "You love him when he's on your team, hate him when he's on the other team." He's probably never going to be an All-Star, but he's a guy who can play a bunch of positions on defense, can use his speed when he's on base, and will generally just be a pest to the other team.
This year, with Anthony Volpe missing the start of the season after undergoing surgery, Caballero got some extended run as a starter. As we continue our look back through the see, let's look back at how he did.
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Grade:C+
2026 Statistics:136 games, 456 plate appearances, .231/.290/.365, 14 home runs, 51 RBI, 6.4 BB%, 24.3 K%, 83 wRC+, 2 OAA, 1.3 fWAR, 2.2 rWAR
2027 Contract Status:First year arbitration eligible
With Volpe on the shelf to start 2026, Caballero was the Yankees' Opening Day starter at shortstop and appeared in all but one of the team's first 42 games, also starting at short in most of them. He made a little bit of history by becoming the first player to use the Automated Ball-Strike System to challenge a pitch. He was unsuccessful on one in the fourth inning of Opening Day.
Following a slow start, Caballero hit a hot stretch around the beginning of May. Through May 11th, he had a .720 OPS, which is perfectly good for a glove first utility man. The argument was out there that he should retain the shortstop position once Volpe came back, and the team did send their former top prospect to the minors once his rehab assignment ended. However on May 10th, Caballero suffered a finger injury while diving back into first base on a pickoff attempt
, leading to Volpe's recall. The injury only kept him out close to the minimum amount of time, as he returned on May 22nd.
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Upon his return back to the majors, Caballero did mostly return to his previous role as a utility-ish guy. He still ended up appearing in 136 games in the majors, so he wasn't fully benched, but he never locked back up that full-time shortstop position. That wasn't because Volpe returned with a vengeance, it's just that Caballero never quite took the ball and ran with it. Upon his return on May 22nd on, Caballero put up just a .623 OPS.
Caballero did finish his 2026 with career highs in home runs and RBI, but nothing about his offensive year was that notable otherwise. While it would've been extremely unrealistic to expect him to match the 133 wRC+ he put up upon getting traded to the Yankees in 2025, the team would've been hoping for better than 83. In the end, he and Volpe both got overtaken by George Lombard Jr., the new top prospect who got a late season call-up and got the majority of shortstop reps down the stretch.
One weird thing about Caballero's 2026 was his battles with umpires through the medium of the pitch clock
. In his role as a pest, Caballero had been deliberately waiting until the last possible second to acknowledge the pitcher, which had been at the eight-second mark on the pitch clock. After some kerfuffles with opposing pitchers, MLB came down on Caballero, giving him a pitch clock violation for waiting to look up. It still seems dumb to me to essentially change a rule mid-season like that, considering that Caballero did seem to be following how the rule was written, but hey, I don't get paid the big bucks to make decisions like that.
As for next season, I would expect Caballero to still be around in a utility role. He's set to be arbitration eligible this season, but it's hard to imagine he would get remotely enough for the Yankees to want to get rid of him. He's still versatile enough and fast enough on the basepaths to be useful to have around.
See more of the Yankees Roster Report Card series
here
.
