New York Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres may need a pronounced finish to the 2024 MLB season to make his upcoming free agency later this winter as worthwhile as possible.
Torres has been with the Yankees since 2018. After hitting the ground running with two straight All-Star appearances in his rookie season and again in 2019, the Venezuelan infielder has tapered off since then. Torres was able to reclaim the power he saw in his first two years at the plate where he hit 24 and 38 home runs respectively. He clocked in 24 bombs again in 2022 and 25 in 2023. He also weathered that two-year drought between 2020-2021 where his batting average fell to as low as .243, by hitting .273 in 2023.
Yankees’ Gleyber Torres may need to overcome season slump to maximize free agency value
Now in the midst of another season with World Series implications for the Yankees, the 27-year-old is back down to a career-low .240 batting average with only 12 homers to his name, and a career-low .675 OPS to show for it. Torres has had his name float in trade rumors all season long, and now that it is apparent that he will close out the year in the Bronx and try to help the team run through this year’s playoffs, the question now becomes how high will his value be when the campaign is all said and done?
Thomas Harrigan of MLB.com recently gave a rather harsh prognosis of Torres’ descent this season, but offered a glimmer of light regarding his worth in the open market in relation to the amount of talent that will be available at his position and the time he has left to right the ship on the year, saying this in part:
“Torres’ production has dropped off a cliff in his final season before free agency:” Harrigan wrote. “But considering the other second basemen who will be available in free agency this offseason and the lack of production many teams around MLB are getting from that position, the opportunity is still there for Torres to elevate his free-agent value,” Harrigan wrote.
Torres’ recent stretch of play could position him for a strong finish to the year
Torres has 26 games left to add to his tallies on the year. He has been particularly reliable at the plate over his last 10 games, recording at least one hit in nine of those contests and two hits in three of those nine games. He has added two home runs to go along with that and eight runs behind a clean .300 batting average. If he continues at this impressive pace, he could notch 31 more hits, five more homers, and 21 more runs on the campaign. Outside of his long bombs and batting average, those numbers would fall in line with how he’s performed throughout his career to date.
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How the Yankees’ financial situation will impact Torres’ upcoming 2025 free-agency
Seeing that the seven-year veteran will be coming off of his fourth and final year of arbitration and the $14.2 million salary that came with it in 2024, he may demand more dollars from other teams interested in his services in the offseason. The Yankees will only have nine players on their active roster payroll for 2025 come season’s end, who make up $202.4 million of their payroll. Thus, bringing back Torres on a multi-year deal could cost New York at the minimum, around $30 million if he were retained for the shorter end of a multi-year deal, being two years at a salary marginally higher than what he is receiving now.
Torres has stated that he wants to remain a Yankee for the rest of his career, but the Yankees want superstar slugger Juan Soto to remain with them for the rest of his, and the latter won’t come cheap, to put it lightly. While both have been projected to be top-10 upcoming free agents, Soto is priority No. 1 for New York, which could see Torres skip town as a result of the circumstance. Whether he stays with the Yankees or leaves, his play in their final 26 games can make a big difference in how things transpire at the negotiation tables in Dec. of 2024 and onward.
