It would've only cost the New York Yankees one year and $15 million to bring Gleyber Torres back to the Bronx, perhaps even less to stay with the team he'd spent his whole career with. Instead, Brian Cashman and Co. elected to let him walk out the door to rely on Jazz Chisholm Jr. and D.J. LeMahieu to eventually man second base to varying degrees. Torres, meanwhile, signed with the Detroit Tigers, and the Yankees have to be regretting that choice ever since, with Saturday being just the latest, but far from the only, example.
In an offensive barrage against the Twins, Torres got things kicked into high gear in the fourth inning when he tattooed a home run 406 feet to center field, a two-run blast that pushed Detroit's lead to 5-2 at the time. That opened the floodgates, the same floodgates that the Yankees couldn't budge on Saturday while facing an old friend, J.P. Sears, and the Athletics.
A 2-run blast from Gleyber Torres! pic.twitter.com/QJcuXBYQqw
— MLB (@MLB) June 28, 2025
Through the first seven innings against the A's, the Yankees hadn't managed a single run while Chisholm went 0-for-3 and LeMahieu went 0-for-1 with a walk (though LeMahieu did single on a weakly hit chopper in the eighth inning thereafter). Again, though, that's just the most recent example of why New York has to be wishing they'd handled Torres quite a bit differently.
Gleyber Torres filling Yankees with regret more by the day
Even though the homer was Torres' only hit on the day (though he did reach and score on a walk), an eventual 10-5 win for the Tigers, he still left the contest with a .284 batting average and an .828 OPS on the season. For contrast, Chisholm came out of Saturday's Yankees loss with a .237 average and .798 OPS, though that's while missing more than 20 games due to injury. LeMahieu, meanwhile, has been far worse with a .248 average and .652 OPS.
Now, it should be said that the Yankees initially hoped to have another young up-and-comer in the mix with Chisholm and LeMahieu at second and third base, respectively, but Oswaldo Cabrera suffered a broken ankle after just 34 games. Even still, his .641 OPS wasn't anything close to what Torres has given the Tigers this season.
However, this all points to the notion that the Yankees severely miscalculated the impact Torres could have. While third isn't Chisholm's natural position, he's playing there after the Cabrera injury. More importantly, though, any combination of Chisholm with either LeMahieu (at third and second, respectively) or Chisholm and Cabrera (at second and third, respectively) doesn't hold a candle to what Chisholm and Torres could've been had New York just put the former at third base from the jump.
If you need any more evidence of this, though, just look at the first phase of All-Star voting. Torres is on track to be the starting second baseman for the American League with 1,981,665 votes. Chisholm is in sixth place, not advancing as a finalist, with only 569,886 votes. That's not the end-all metric to judge everything by because, well, it is fan voting. At the same time, though, it's fully indicative that Torres has been the best player of any options the Yankees had coming into the season — and he's the one they let out of the building. Tough scenes.