New York Yankees: Are they rushing Gleyber Torres?
The New York Yankees appear to be grooming Gleyber Torres to take over third base this season. Are they rushing the 20-year-old?
The New York Yankees are off to a great start after the first two months of the season. A lot of it started last season with their youth movement. They gave Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez chances to come up and get significant playing time last season. The year before that, Greg Bird and Luis Severino were given chances as well.
While Sanchez missed time this year and Bird has missed a good chunk of the season, Judge is playing like an MVP candidate and Severino finally looks comfortable as a full-time starter.
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That youth movement should continue with a few of their top prospects knocking down the door at AAA. One top prospect may be up as soon as this season and at a different position than he usually plays.
Chase Headley got off to a great start in April, hitting .301 with an .896 OPS. May was a much different story, as he hit just .165. This is why the New York Yankees could bench Headley and bring up Gleyber Torres to play third as soon as this season. Per Randy Miller of NJ.com:
The Yankees’ plan, according to the source, is contingent on Torres becoming Major League ready sometime over the next two months, which the organization fully expects to happen
The important thing to remember about Torres is that he’s just 20 years of age. Before this season, he hadn’t played above High-A. Torres won the MVP of the Arizona Fall League and got moved up to AA to start this season.
He played just 32 games in AA before getting the call to AAA. Thus far, he’s hitting .212 with three RBI in 10 games.
Torres could be a star in baseball for a very long time. It’s important to realize, though, that not every prospect is Mike Trout or Corey Seager. Not everyone becomes a star right away and just takes off. It takes some time.
For the Yankees, as they begin this new era, it represents a turnaround in philosophy that they had for so long. They are going with youth and Torres, Judge, Bird and Sanchez represent that core.
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While Headley has struggled this year, they shouldn’t rush Torres if he isn’t quite ready to handle a promotion to the big leagues. They could always go to Tyler Wade. While not as highly regarded as Torres, he could be ready sooner and is being groomed to be more of a Ben Zobrist type of player. Maybe getting his feet wet at third in the big leagues and then moving around could help his development.
The bottom line is that if Torres isn’t ready, the Yankees shouldn’t rush it. They have other options that they can go to.