Yankees Gleyber Torres exceeding all of our expectations

The Yankees knew they were getting a potentially special player in Gleyber Torres from the Cubs in the 2016 Aroldis Chapman deal. But no one could have ever imagined just how fast Torres would blossom into a star.

Yankees infielder Gleyber Torres missed all but 55 games of the 2017 minor league season after undergoing Tommy John surgery to repair his left UCL.

Not even two full years later, Torres has established himself as one of baseball’s elite young talents, only scratching the surface of his enormous potential.

Having made the AL All-Star team in each of his first two seasons (the third Yankee to do so before turning 23 — Mickey Mantle and Joe DiMaggio were the others), Torres’ two home runs on Saturday, that propelled the Yankees to a 6-5 win over the Indians, marked his seventh multi-homer game this season.

At 22 years, 247 days, Torres became the youngest player in major league history to record such a feat — and the second-youngest player behind only Mel Ott of the Giants (22 years, 132 days) to record nine multi round-trippers in a career.

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Torres’ home runs in the fourth and sixth innings, give him a total of 29 in 2019. Back in Spring Training, if you thought Torres would lead the Yanks in home runs come August 18, then please send me to next Mega Millions numbers.

With a powerful force that lends itself to hitting the ball to all fields, Torres is just one home run shy of DiMaggio’s mark of 30 long balls slugged in a season while under the age of 22, set in 1937 when the Yankee Clipper notched 46.

Before Torres, the only Yankee middle infielder to ever lead the team in home runs was Robinson Cano, who hit 27 in 2013.

Cutting down on his strikeout rate from 25.2 percent last season to 20.5 percent, today, while already exceeding his total walks from 2018 by one (43), Torres has picked up the immense slack left over from significant injuries sustained to Giancarlo Stanton, Miguel Andujar and a slew of others.

Sure, Torres still has room to grow defensively, as his 15 errors and -6 Rdrs will attest. But I believe that has more to do with his shifting back and forth from shortstop to second base, rather than anything else.

Once the Yankees ultimately decide what will happen with free-agent-to-be Didi Gregorius this winter, Torres will have time to refine his skill set at one steady position — and become the complete player we now know possible.