Ultimately, labels don’t matter. Especially for a young player.
Take Gleyber Torres, for instance.
The 21-year-old hit Yankees spring training as the second-best prospect in all of baseball. After returning from a torn elbow ligament, the hope outside the confines of George M. Steinbrenner Field was that he’d slip right into the starting spot at second base, the position vacated by the December trade of Starlin Castro that helped transport Giancarlo Stanton from South Florida to the Bronx.
He could also play some third if necessary, not to mention shortstop, his natural position, if Didi Gregorius got hurt.
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Rookie phenom in the making, right?
Unfortunately for those expectant fans, the Yanks had other ideas. And they weren’t bad ones, either.
In came Brandon Drury in a Feb. 20 trade with the Diamondbacks.
There went third base.
And just Monday came former Mets second baseman Neil Walker off the free agent market.
Out went second. And thanks to his slow spring training production -- .a .130 batting average in 23 at-bats -- it’s off to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre for Torres, at least to start the regular season.
The Yanks made that official Tuesday after Torres went 1-for-2 with a walk in the 2-2 tie against the Tigers.
He was undoubtedly disappointed, even though the writing was written in large letters once Walker agreed to a bargain one-year, $4 million deal. The fact that youngster Tyler Wade outplayed him at second didn’t help.
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Whether Torres comes in May, or at any time before September call-ups for that matter, will depend on whether he can straighten out the swing that helped him rise from A-ball in 2016 to Double-A and Triple-A in 2017 before he blew out the left elbow in June.
The guess here is that he will. But the certainty is that this is not a bad thing. Players as young as Torres can always use an extra dose of development, preferably away from the pressures a major league roster spot presents.
Plus, he has plenty of time.
Nobody is rushing here. The Bronx isn’t crying for yet more youth in that infield, not with Greg Bird just a smidge past rookie status after injuries limited him to just 94 games and 304 at-bats his first three years in the majors and Gary Sanchez heading into just his second full season.
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The infield will benefit from Drury and Walker.
Especially Walker.
He’ll add solid switch-hitting to the bottom of an explosive lineup, a good though unspectacular glove at second and a good locker-room presence.
That’s not a bad thing to have, especially at the price the Yanks got him. After all, the Mets paid him $17.2 million last year and then traded him to the Brewers in their late-season salary dump.
To take advantage of a slow free agent market and land a veteran like Walker for a relative song, it was something the Yanks would have been crazy to refuse.
Torres simply became a casualty. But it’s not over for him. Far from it. He may still become as great a Yankee as his label suggests. But labels mean little to a team trying to build on last year’s surprise showing.
Better to plug in proven veterans like Walker than a developing star.
Torres will have his time, providing he continues to live up to the label.
It just won’t happen for him now.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.