Hidden Value, Part 1: José Caballero Ranks Among the New York Yankees Most Valuable Players
About this series: Surface stats still drive the conversation, batting average, ERA, RBIs, saves. The numbers on the back of the baseball card shape how most fans judge players. But the expected-stats era tells a different and more accurate story. This “Hidden Value” series goes looking for the New York Yankees whose traditional numbers undersell them: the players whose real worth lives in the gap between what the box score shows and what the underlying data says they’ve actually earned. Each installment takes one overlooked player and uses Statcast, batted-ball data, and run values to reveal the contributor underneath the surface line.
José Caballero has never hit .240 in a full major-league season. He entered 2026 with a career line built around a single elite skill and the reputation of a one-trick speed specialist. Yet he’s been one of the Yankees’ most valuable position players and he leads the majors in stolen bases. To understand how, you have to stop reading the batting average and start counting the runs it ignores.
The legs: the best baserunner in baseball
Caballero’s defining skill is elite, and it’s not subtle. He’s already piled up more than 30 stolen bases this season, pacing all of baseball, after leading the AL in 2024 and all of MLB in 2025, a third straight stolen-base crown is well within reach. Statcast grades his baserunning among the very best in the league, powered by a sprint speed around 28.3 ft/sec. Stolen bases get treated as a fun stat; at this volume and efficiency, they’re a genuine, repeatable source of run creation that never shows up in a slugging percentage.
The glove: real defensive value at premium positions
The baserunning alone would make him useful. The defense makes him a regular. Caballero grades out as a plus defender with strong range, and he banked five Defensive Runs Saved at shortstop while filling in during Anthony Volpe’s absence, enough that he reclaimed the everyday shortstop job and pushed Volpe to the bench on his return. He’s done it while bouncing across second, short, third, and a couple outfield spots. Jose’s positional flexibility quietly multiplies his value by letting Aaron Boone optimize the rest of the lineup.
The bat is the bonus, not the engine
Here’s the part that makes Caballero the cleanest example in this series. His wOBA (around .315) actually sits above his xwOBA (near .284) meaning his offense has, if anything, slightly outrun his contact quality. For most hitters that’s a regression warning. For Caballero it’s almost beside the point: his value was never contingent on the bat. Even if the offense settles toward his .220-ish norms, the baserunning and defense form a floor that keeps him an everyday-caliber contributor. Any offense on top is profit.
Why the slash line lies about him
A .220-ish average with limited power reads as replaceable. But WAR captures three phases of the game, and Caballero is a net positive in all three, hitting, fielding, and baserunning. The traditional stat sheet weighs exactly one of those, and it happens to be his weakest. That’s the disconnect: the casual evaluation undersells him because the casual evaluation is built around the only category where he’s average.
The verdict
José Caballero is the textbook case of value the box score can’t see. A major-league-leading stolen-base total, plus-defense at multiple premium positions, and enough offense to clear the bar add up to one of the most valuable Yankees on a rate basis, full stop. If you’re judging him by his batting average, you’re grading him on the one part of his game that matters least. There’s a business tell here, too. Caballero is under team control through 2029 on a modest deal.
Next in Hidden Value, Part 2: a center fielder whose batting average is the worst possible way to measure him.