This story was excerpted from Jason Beck's Tigers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
The last time Gleyber Torres took the field at Yankee Stadium, he was facing Jack Flaherty and the Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series, a roller-coaster Fall Classic that saw him hit a clutch three-run homer to help win Game 4 and narrowly miss a grand slam in Game 5. He had an up-and-down final season as a Yankee before hitting free agency and signing a one-year deal with the Tigers in December in an effort to re-establish his value on the market.
He’s now closer to his next taste of free agency than his last one, and he has nearly a full season in Detroit, along with an All-Star start, under his belt. Add in the fact that the Tigers and Yankees are both near-locks to make the postseason -- and could match up against each other at some point -- and the storyline of Torres returning to Yankee Stadium had been subdued a bit by time and circumstance.
Still, it’ll be a special return for Torres, who played his first seven Major League seasons in the Bronx. Whether it’ll be an emotional one is tough for him to predict.
“To be honest, I don’t know,” Torres said Sunday. “Maybe. Who knows? For sure I’m going to see my teammates, it’s going to be fun to play against them. It’s going to be a really good competitive series. But just try to compete, be with the boys, try to win the series and we’ll see about the feelings when I get there.”
Likewise, Torres does not know what the fan reaction might be.
“No idea,” he said. “Hopefully good, but who knows? Let’s see how they react on the first day.”
The bond between Torres and his former teammates was evident last week when he was joking around on the field with Mets slugger Juan Soto, his Yanks teammate last year. He obviously has longer ties with many current Yankees; Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton have both been there since Torres broke into the big leagues in 2018.
Torres essentially grew up as a player with the Yankees. Still just 28, he is in many ways one of the grown-ups in a young Tigers clubhouse, a veteran with 45 games of postseason experience whose postseason debut in 2018 came before many of his current teammates had reached the Majors.
And after mercurial times with the Yankees, Torres has been a beacon of steadiness with the Tigers, despite a slow second half at the plate. Despite playing home games in spacious Comerica Park, he has matched his home run total from last season while posting the highest walk total of his career.
“What I’ve seen out of Gleyber has been a very consistent, methodical approach,” manager A.J. Hinch said. “He has had to battle some things physically, yet still wants to play. He has battled some performance, yet still wants to play. I’ve barely given him a breather, but it’s because of his zone control. He never tries to draw walks, but when he’s drawing walks at the rate in which he does, you can tell he’s pretty locked in on the game plan and what he’s trying to do. …
“Mentally, this guy’s as strong as anybody we have, and just showing up to the ballpark, ready to play, doing his job and trying to contribute, I’ve appreciated that.”
Defensively, Torres has improved vastly from his low points last year, though he’s still in negative territory with regards to outs above average and defensive runs saved. His steadiness has him the rock in an infield defense that has seemingly rotated around him all season with platoons and substitutions.
“What I’ve seen from him,” Hinch said, “is make a lot of effort to attempt to correct some of the things he struggled with. Glove-side was not great over the last couple of years; he’s gotten better at that. The turning of the double play, when he got here he was at a level, and I think [coaches] Joey [Cora] and [Gary Jones] have taken him to a much better level, where he can lean on a couple of those double-play turns.”
Torres is looking forward to this week. But he already has an eye on what’s beyond that for this team.
“Just keep playing hard, keep focused,” Torres said. “I think my favorite part is the postseason, and we’re close to making that. Just try to get healthy, try to keep playing and get ready for the next step.”