Everyone needs Gleyber Torres to bounce back this year
The clock is already ticking on Gleyber Torres. After a disappointing 2020 season at shortstop, the 24-year-old All-Star has a lot to prove this season with elite shortstops on the horizon of the next free agent class. And he does not go into camp with a long-term commitment from the Yankees.
“He’s our shortstop. Nothing more I can say,” Yankees GM Brian Cashman said last month. “Long term? I mean, ultimately, we’ll evaluate everything on a year in and year out basis.
“But he’s our shortstop, as simple as that.”
While the Mets have expressed interest in locking up Francisco Lindor on a long-term deal, if that doesn’t happen he heads a class of pending free agents that includes Corey Seager, Javier Baez, Carlos Correa and Trevor Story. Depending on how things play out for the Cubs and Rockies, Baez and Story could be available by the trade deadline this year.
But Torres has a chance to show he can be the Yankees shortstop’ of the future to start this season.
Heading into the the start of spring training, Torres will be one of the several questions the Yankees have when position players report to Tampa in less than two weeks to prepare for the 2021 season.
First and foremost, Torres needs to show up in shape.
That was part of the issue in 2020. The extra weight that he put on between the shutdown of spring training by the coronavirus pandemic and the start of the summer training camp most likely contributed to leg issues that had him missing 13 games in the middle of a 60-game, pandemic-abbreviated season.
Cashman was blunt in his assessment of Torres’ struggles, which were exacerbated by the strange circumstances of last season.
“I think that ultimately, he struggled in the beginning of the pandemic 60-games season because after the spring training shutdown into (the second) spring training, he did not — and I’m not playing the blame game — but he wasn’t in the best shape to start the second spring training,” Cashman said in December. “So upon his return from the shutdown, we spent a little bit of a first half of the season playing catch-up, maybe the first 40 or 45 days of season playing catch-up.”
Cashman walked that back a bit later in the month, but that was what scouts across the game saw from Torres.
“He was slow and heavy,” one National League scout said. “It hurt him on defense, clearly a step slow to the ball. I think after (2019) they thought he would get better. With his bat, they are going to give him a chance to grow in that spot.”
The Yankees went into 2020 thinking Torres had proved he could handle the position.
In 2019, Torres played 77 games at shortstop until Didi Gregorius returned from Tommy John surgery.
He posted a -12 defensive runs saved and a -3 outs above average.
Still, the Yankees thought that the young infielder, whose bat was explosive, could grow into the position. It also allowed them to give second base to DJ LeMahieu.
This season, Torres had nine errors at shortstop, tied for the second most at that position in the majors, and two in the playoffs. He posted a -9 defensive runs saved and a -4 outs above average. He was in the bottom two percentile in outs above average, according to Baseball Savant.
Cashman admitted that Torres, who came up as a shortstop, “is a better second baseman, but I think that he can play shortstop.”
With the return of LeMahieu on a six-year deal, Torres’ immediate future is at shortstop. And while Cashman may not have been happy with Torres’ heavier body and slower step this season, there is no doubt that he has a lot of pop in it and is always going to find a way into the lineup.
An All-Star his first two seasons in the big leagues, Torres has a career slash line of .271/.340/.493 with 65 homers and 183 RBI. But he had an all-around disappointing season, hitting .243/.356/.368, career lows in batting average and slugging.
For Torres, 2021 needs to be an all-around bounce back year.
