The New York Yankees will be one of the best teams in the MLB in 2018. One reason for this are the young savages in the team. This year, Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar joined in, two rookies who have quickly established themselves. SPOX looks back on the path of the two Baby Bombers to the Bronx.
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Before Gleyber Torres, currently the most promising candidate for the American League Rookie of the Year Award, began his impressive season, he had an odyssey to find his way to the Bronx. A path he didn’t even recognize at first.
Torres, who the Yankees had won in a 2016 trade for Closer Aroldis Chapman of the Chicago Cubs, had been on the radar of the Bronx Bombers for much longer. It was, it is said, the top target of the Yankees in the international signing period 2013/14!
One day Donny Rowland, the International Scouting Director of the team, informed General Manager Brian Cashman about Torres and made it clear that he simply had to be fetched. But “literally disappeared the next day,” Rowland revealed to The Athletic. “I couldn’t find the boy.”
As it turned out, the Cubs had beaten the Yankees and had already agreed orally with Torres on a signing bonus of $1.7 million for the previous Thanksgiving. He then dived up what is commonplace in the international player market when an agreement is reached with an MLB team. The players don’t visit tryouts and the like anymore. On 2 July 2013, the Cubs finally made the commitment perfect.
Cashman recently admitted that Torres’ noncommitment has never really let him go: “If such players don’t just disappear off the radar with horrible professional performances, you’ll try to get them sometime.
So Cash kept an eye on Torres and finally took his chance in 2016 when the Cubs knocked on Chapman’s door on their first World Series title in 108 years. “Donny, I’m getting Gleyber, I’m finally getting him,” Cashman said on the phone with Rowland. “It’s years later, but we have him now.”
Torres would certainly have been a good candidate for the Yankees as early as 2017 if he hadn’t destroyed his left elbow early in the season with a nonsensical slide into second base with his hands ahead. A Tommy John Surgery, a month-long rehabilitation and a short stay in the Minor League to readjust later #GleyberDay was actually in the Bronx. Since then, the Yankees organization has been allowed to pat each other on the shoulders for excellent scouting.
With far less fanfare, but quite similar yield, co-rookie Miguel Andujar made his way into the MLB. In general, his path to the Yankees was less problematic at the beginning. It was expensive – the Yankees paid him a $750,000 bonus in the 2011/12 signing period, which was the Yankees’ highest value that year – but they got it straight away. The classification: Today’s Ace, Luis Severino, came for comparatively cheap 225,000 dollars in the same period.
“He had bat speed well above the average for his age group,” Rowland looked back. “He seldom swung past the ball. There aren’t many guys at that age who beat breaking balls, but the quality of his contact with fastballs was very high. He had Swagger. He had confidence. He took the Batter’s Box – it was his Batter’s Box. He looked like a big leaguer, like he’s in the book. We’ve been licking him the whole time.”
The only flaw that could be detected in Andujar was his defene. One of the main reasons the Yankees hadn’t ordered him up earlier was his defense on third base. “His bat was ahead of his glove – and it’s not even the glove, it’s just about his footwork on certain plays,” Cashman explained his protégé’s weaknesses.
And of course, Andujar’s defense is still not famous. The bank ranked him last among all qualified third basemen of the MLB in the modern defensive ratings of FanGraphs such as Defensive Runs Saved (-12), Ultimate Zone Rating (-6.6) and UZR/150 (-27.4). On the other hand, his 121 wRC+ (adjusted weighted runs created) puts him in the top 10 in the same group.
For the moment, they both duel daily for the title of Rookie of the Year in the American League. At the same time, they also play their part in making the Yankees the most promising candidates for the World Series with their current youth course – each of the regular starters except Left Fielder Brett Gardner is under 30.
Torres was promoted to the MLB because Neil Walker just couldn’t get into the second base, while Andujar took over for Brandon Drury, who suddenly complained about visual problems and migraine and since his recovery initially beat the International League to Triple-A level for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders short and small and is now back in the MLB squad as a general-purpose weapon – but he can’t get past Andujar at the moment!
If it goes to Cashman, then these two, who had only made their way into the original formation of New York through fluctuations in form or health problems of others, will keep their places in the team at least until the end of the season. What happens after that is already more uncertain.
Torres should certainly claim second base without any major problems – the current hip injury should not take him out of circulation for too long -, especially since his only current rival, Walker, will be gone by the end of the season at the latest – if he still experiences the end of the season at all in Pinstripes, which is also not set in stone given his poor form.
Andujar, on the other hand, could have a harder time of it. On the one hand, Brandon Drury will sooner or later return to his former form, and on the other hand, there is a good chance that the Yankees in the Free Agency won’t miss the chance of Manny Machado from the Baltimore Orioles; after all, he is an established star, but he has changed to shortstop and wants to stay there. Although his defensive stats are also not famous and at least in his current position seem comparable to those of Andujar.
But if you put your trust in Andujar this season, you’ll definitely get a bargain – he and Torres will both be under team control for another six years from 2019 and would therefore not become free agents until 2024. For a team that will have to pay its other young stars like Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez, but also Severino, in the near future, this is certainly not to be underestimated.
However, these are considerations that will certainly only come to the fore in winter. For the moment, however, especially for fans of the Yankees: lean back and enjoy the wild ride. The Baby Bombers are causing a furore, and they don’t seem to be finished yet.
This article was published without previous view by the Major League Baseball.