This Friday, April 13th, is the MLB service time cutoff, where teams across baseball can bring up their top prospects while ensuring they pick up an extra year of team control over their players in 2024 before they hit free agency. While this has long been a point of contention between the MLBPA and team owners (see Bryant, Kris) a player does not hit free agency until he accumulates six full years of service time in the MLB, so for front offices, it’s a no-brainer to keep their prospects down in the minors for an extra two weeks in exchange for an extra season in uniform when the player is close to reaching, if not already in their prime. In all likelihood, this will mean the debut of Ronald Acuna in Atlanta, and possibly even Nick Senzel in Cincinnati, and Francisco Mejia in Cleveland, all of who will help to fill significant needs for their respective clubs. But after a spring training full of hype, does this also mean we will finally see Gleyber Torres in pinstripes with the New York Yankees?
The youngest MVP in the history of the Arizona Fall League and a consensus top-five prospect in baseball, Torres, 21, was acquired by the Yankees as the centerpiece in the Aroldis Chapman trade at the 2016 trade deadline. In his first season in the Yankees farm system split between AA Trenton and AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barres, Torres hit .287/.383/.480 with 7 HR and 34 RBI before having his season cut short due to a torn UCL in his non-throwing left elbow, suffered from sliding head first into home. After recovering over the offseason, Torres was brought into big league camp during spring training, and although he had flashes of success, overall he looked overmatched at the plate before being demoted to AAA, hitting .219/.286/.313 with only three extra-base hits in thirteen games.
Despite struggling in spring training, Gleyber has looked like more of himself in AAA thus far, hitting .333/.333/.542 with eight hits in 24 at-bats as of this writing. Although he has yet to walk in the minors this season, it should be noted that in every year of his minor league career, Torres has improved his approach at the plate each year by cutting down on his strikeouts, while correspondingly increasing his walk rate. In five seasons in the minors, Torres is a .283/.360/.418 hitter, so the only real reason the Yankees have to keep him off the big league roster is for him to get more experience playing multiple positions in the infield, since Torres, a natural shortstop, will be blocked at the position by Didi Gregorius for the foreseeable future.
Right now, the Yankees infield is a bit of miss due to injuries, with Brandon Drury and Greg Bird on the disabled list due to recurring migraines and ankle surgery respectively. Even in a small eight-game sample, Drury was not particularly impressive, hitting .217/.333/.391, with six strikeouts in 23 at-bats. Additionally, Drury added that these migraines have affected him for his entire career but that he never reveled them in Arizona, so it really is a mystery how long it could take him to recover, or how often the injury will resurface. While Bird has time and time again been positioned as the Yankees first baseman of the future, he has yet to prove he can stay healthy for anywhere near a full season, missing all of 2016 due to shoulder surgery, and only playing in 48 games a season ago.
After a great spring training at the plate where he hit .286/.400/.388 with 14 hits and nine walks, Tyler Wade has regressed to where he was in his first taste of big league action last year, hitting .111/.200/.185 in nine games. Elsewhere, Torres’ fellow top prospect, Miguel Andujar, has looked lost at the plate in his first seven big league appearances, hitting .107/.133/.107 with no extra base hits in 28 at-bats after hitting 4 HR with a .928 OPS in spring ball. Neil Walker (hits in nine of ten games this season) and Tyler Austin (four of nine hits have gone for extra bases) have done a solid job rotating between first base and DH with Bird out, but it is likely that once Aaron Hicks returns from the DL that Giancarlo Stanton will slide back into the DH spot, and Walker will claim the everyday first base role from Austin thanks to his experience, stronger glove, and switch-hitting. In six games, Ronald Torreyes has hit .357/.357/.500, but thanks to his versatility and small stature, the Yankees likely want to keep him as an option off the bench if possible.
Assuming Walker is the first baseman until Bird’s return, no one on the Yankees roster has stepped up to run away with the starting roles at second or third base thus far. With very little left to prove in the minors, that could mean we see Torres time in New York as soon as tomorrow, giving the Yankees some much-needed relief to help offset Friday the 13th.
