Gleyber Torres is burying whatever is left of his Yankees legacy

Silly us for thinking the Gleyber Torres-New York Yankees beef would dissipate after the hoopla that stemmed from Brian Cashman calling out the Detroit Tigers' second baseman for his unwillingness to switch positions last year during an episode of "Yankees Hot Stove" on the YES Network.

What resulted from that wasn't pretty, but it felt like a fitting end to it all. Cashman got his little comments in and then Torres responded in cheeky fashion on social media. Barbs exchanged. Relationship officially over. New season starting soon. Time to move on.

But since then, Torres has decided to speak out not once, but twice, as the Yankees have moved on happily with Jazz Chisholm at second base (don't ask us what's happening at third base, though).

The most recent incident came this week, and Torres earned himself a spot on the tabloid back pages because of it. Apparently he didn't get enough of that during his time in New York — you know, all those times when he resented the criticism and backlash as a result of performance-based issues.

When speaking to the Detroit media about his decision to join the Tigers with spring training now in full force and Opening Day just three weeks away, Torres took a veiled shot at the Yankees with this comment (subscription required, via the New York Post): “I feel I deserve to be with an organization that wants me. I’m here now and that’s the reason I’m here.”

Tigers veteran Gleyber Torres takes another shot at Yankees for no reason

The Tigers offered Torres a one-year, $15 million contract, which was exactly $800K more than what he earned with the Yankees in 2024. So how "badly" did the Tigers want him? It's not like that offer showed he was valued above and beyond what New York felt. Unless, of course, Torres feels the one-year offer was leaps and bounds higher than the Yankees being not interested at all. But if Detroit really liked him, wouldn't they have committed to multiple years for somebody heading into his age-28 season?

Torres is also overlooking the reality that the Yankees did want him. And they gave him more runway than most other teams would have. He spent seven full seasons in New York and his impact following his first two All-Star campaigns in 2018 and 2019 drastically decreased. His defense got worse over the five years since 2019. He abandoned the team's stated plan to make him the full-time shortstop after he couldn't handle the position in 2020-2021 (he also came up as a shortstop in the minor leagues). He was associated with a lack of hustle, poor body language, mental lapses and errors for the better part of the last five seasons. He led the AL in errors three times since 2020 and came dangerously close to a fourth time. His baserunning gaffes were maddening. His lack of situational hitting as time went on was frustrating as well.

The Yankees did try to trade him, but they couldn't garner enough interest to execute a deal to their liking back in 2022 and 2023. And we'll be the first to blame the team for letting those rumors leak and then not working hard to move Torres, because he hadn't really been a fit since after the 2021 season. Did he rebound and contribute positively on the offensive end? Yes, but his truly meaningful contributions were few and far between, and he often times canceled out his additive offense with his defensive/baserunning gaffes.

The moral of the story here is that the Yankees and Yankees fans would've killed for Torres to be a productive star, but everything kind of just fell apart after 2019. It's reasonable to say nobody expected him to become a seven-time All-Star since his MLB debut, but fans surely didn't expect him to record 6.6 WAR with 52 home runs and 167 RBI in his first two seasons and then 9.5 WAR with 76 home runs and 274 RBI (in conjunction with a plummeting slash line) over his next five.

Torres needs to get over it, put this to bed, and work on making the Yankees regret their decision based on how he performs in 2025. Nobody cares about what he has to say anymore, and he's one more comment away from making every fan forget about whatever's left of his 2018-2019 legacy.