Gleyber Torres is someone who comes along only a few times in a lifetime. With no end in sight to his meteoric rise, Yankees fans can only feel blessed…
At 22, Gleyber Torres has only just begun. In his second full season, he’s made the AL All-Star team both times. His name appears on the American League leaderboard for most home runs with 29, and his .880 OPS is one-hundred and forty points above the league average. When you hear someone saying, “The skies the limit”, know they are talking about Gleyber Torres.
A sure shot to make the Venezuelan Baseball Hall Of Fame, the only mystery is if he will join his fellow countryman, Luis Aparicio, in the Baseball Hall Of Fame. Note: Miguel Cabrera and Jose Altuve, both from Venezuala may beat him there)
Like a good umpire, on most days you barely notice Gleyber Torres on the field. Unassuming and genuinely shy, Torres shows up for work every day ready to play. Second base or shortstop, he can care less, as long as Aaron Boone writes his name in the lineup.
Aside from his penchant to hit home runs lately, Torres labors in the shadow of Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton (when he’s healthy), and DJ LeMahieu. Until you check the box score the next day, it might go unnoticed he fielded eight outs cleanly, started a double play and finished another. Or, that Torres sandwiched a hit in the middle of a three-run rally.
Gleyber Torres: Accolades Come From Everywhere
Aaron Boone gushes over Gleyber Torres’s play. When Torres was not included among the reserves (he made the team later), Boone could hardly contain his disgust:
His teammates are also effusive in their praise for Gleyber Torres. Back in April 2018 when the Yankees finally called him up from the minors, “He’s gonna be good, man,” Giancarlo Stanton told The Post’s Dan Martin. “He is good already. He’s gonna prove himself.”
And when tests came back negative on a possible injury, this was the scene in the Yankee dugout as Torres was welcomed back:
Mark It Down As The Steal Of The Decade
Baseball Reference contains this entry on its page devoted to Gleyber Torres:
July 25, 2016: Traded by the Chicago Cubs with Rashad Crawford (minors), Billy McKinney and Adam Warren to the New York Yankees for Aroldis Chapman.
A day that will go down in infamy on the resume of Brian Cashman. For, it was on that day he stole the desperate Chicago Cubs blind. Oh, the Cubs got their first World Series title in a gazillion years with Chapman as their closer. But the Yankees got Torres. And the story could end there, except the Yankees got Chapman back as a free agent, and he, not Craig Kimbrel (the Cub’s closer now), leads the league in saves with 34 in 2019.
Yankees fans, with good reasons, clamored for the arrival of Gleyber Torres at Yankee Stadium. Brian Cashman held down the fort for as long as he could, eventually giving way to the more intelligent part of his brain. And you know the rest of the story.
Who Dares To Write The Script?
As noted in the title of this piece, who dares to write the script that follows the orbit of Gleyber Torres’s career? Will he appear in more All-Star games than Derek Jeter who had fourteen? Will his batting average keep creeping up towards the .300 mark? How man rings will Torres have when he retires? Is there a place in Monument Park for Number 25?
What we do know is it is a joy to watch Gleyber Torres at work. Yankees fans are privileged in the same way the folks in Atlanta are to have Ronald Acuna Jr., Dodger fans are to have Cody Bellinger, and Boston is to have Rafael Devers playing for them every day.
Gleyber Torres is the real thing and he’s only just begun…
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
