With the addition of Jazz Chisholm, demands have grown louder from corners of the Yankee fanbase to trade Gleyber Torres, who was thrown out on the bases and made another error at second base in Sunday’s win over the Red Sox.
Morash, who has been critical of Torres in what has been an underwhelming contract year, says the smart move would be to hang onto the veteran second baseman and stock up as much depth as possible.
“Unless it’s truly a strength-for-strength type deal…a Harrison Bader/Jordan Montgomery type deal, if that trade is out there for Gleyber Torres and it makes the Yankees truly better in another area, fine,” Morash said. “But to trade Torres just because you have a logjam at second base, I’m not for that.
“The Yankees depth and bench, frankly, has been lousy, and that’s putting it nicely this year. The great teams of Yankees past - with guys like Darryl Strawberry and Tim Raines - they had deep benches. And guys like Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, and even Jazz Chisholm, have big-time games missed due to injuries in years past. I want protection against all of that.”
Torres is a free agent at the end of the season, and didn’t sound too thrilled when asked about the idea of moving to third base to allow Chisholm to play second. Regardless, Morash says Torres can deal with it or deal with being demoted to a bench role, but he wouldn’t trade him unless it meant drastically improving another area of the team like the starting rotation or bullpen.
“Don’t worry about offending Gleyber Torres if he gets less and less playing time,” Morash said. “The Yankees need a deep bench. If he only plays twice a week, so be it.”