Gleyber Torres has not had the 2024 season he was looking for, and the Yankees are likely not to bring him back when he hits free agency this winter. It’s hard to imagine how the 26-year-old infielder feels, especially considering his public statements about wanting to remain with the Bronx Bombers for life. He’s stepped up at the plate as of late though, and he’s starting to rope the baseball to the pull-side the way he did in the second half of last season. Finding himself in the leadoff spot as of late, this could be a huge momentum shifter for the Yankees, who have lacked production there all year.
Is it just a hot streak? Maybe, but there are some aspects of this latest tear for Gleyber Torres that could lead to sustained success down the stretch for a Yankees’ team trying to take home the AL East crown.
A Red-Hot Gleyber Torres Has Given the Yankees a New Leadoff Man
When the Yankees landed in Houston for their first series of the season, they led off Gleyber Torres in front of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, a strategy that didn’t work at all. His .240 SLG% and 53 wRC+ saw him swiftly being demoted to the lower half of the lineup, and he was struggling to find it for all of April. Since that awful month, he’s been teetering around a league-average bat, sporting a .729 OPS which is solid for the run environment that we’ve seen this season.
The lack of power has been a concern, and while Gleyber Torres isn’t tearing the cover off of the baseball in the leadoff spot right now, he is pulling the ball more often and working a ton of walks. Since being shuffled to the top of the lineup against the Detroit Tigers, he’s slashing .316/.435/.526 with eight walks to just seven strikeouts, but the best part is that he seems to be swinging with some more intensity.
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By swinging the bat harder, he’s getting more batted balls to the pull-side and thus it’s resulting in more hits and some more damage. Not only is he swinging harder and getting results, but he’s not chasing or whiffing a ton, something we saw with Anthony Volpe as he tried to chase some more pull-side power. Gleyber Torres is an important part to what this team is doing this season, and he can change the tone of the lineup based on how he performs down the stretch.
We aren’t going to see the 25 home run season that he had last year, but if Gleyber Torres can consistently square up the baseball, he could be an excellent leadoff option. Pitchers are trying to force him to make mistakes by swinging himself out of an at-bat, but he’s a usually brilliant swing decision-maker who has nailed down the art of in-zone aggression while remaining patient enough to work his walks.
Among qualified hitters, Gleyber Torres has the 10th-best difference in Zone Swing Rate and Out-of-Zone Swing Rate, and most of the guys on this list are brilliant hitters. Making good swing decisions is the foundation of a great leadoff hitter, and while the power is something I need a larger sample size to feel confident in, we’re starting to see the foundational work that goes into that kind of change.
Gleyber Torres could cool off and enter the offseason as a second baseman who had an off year at the plate and doesn’t provide any defensive value, or he could be the infielder who caught fire at the right time and helped bring a title to New York. For his sake and ours, I hope we can remember this streak as the one that helped the 2024 Yankees miraculously find their leadoff hitter after months of futility at that spot in the order.