Former All-Star Could Have Solved Yankees' Infield Issues

Perhaps this is a bit of an over-exaggeration, but it's not totally unfair to assert that the New York Yankees have an infield conundrum on their hands.

With that being said, the Yankees should have no qualms about their current situation at first base, where 37-year-old Paul Goldschmidt is holding down the fort with an .854 OPS, and at shortstop, where Anthony Volpe has logged four Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) with a 115 wRC+.

The issues, however, come into focus when looking at second and third base. DJ LeMahieu immediately recaptured his role as the starter at the former of the two positions upon returning from the injured list on May 13, and the results simply haven't been there thus far: in 18 games and 61 plate appearances, he's slashed .236/.311/.309.

Sliding over to the hot corner, Jazz Chisholm Jr. is currently taking one for the team by playing there everyday out of necessity.

Jorbit Vivas and Oswald Peraza both provided nothing of substance in their respective auditions this season, and with Oswaldo Cabrera on the injured list after fracturing his ankle last month, the Yankees had no real choice but to move Chisholm back to third despite second base being his natural position.

He has held his own there in a general sense, though, posting six Outs Above Average (OAA) in 436 1/3 innings since being traded to New York by the Miami Marlins at last year's deadline while recording zero over 36 frames in 2025.

While it's still not an ideal situation, the Yankees could certainly get away with slotting Chisholm in at third for an extended period of time, much like they did in 2024.

As LeMahieu's struggles mount, however, the need for a quality second baseman with Chisholm at third has become increasingly clear, and the club may have let the perfect fit in Gleyber Torres walk away as a free agent this past offseason.

Torres, who New York acquired from the Chicago Cubs as part of the Aroldis Chapman trade in July 2016, profiled as one of baseball's top prospects before his major league debut.

He didn't disappoint upon his arrival to the Bronx in April 2018, earning All-Star nods both that year and in 2019 while batting .275/.338.511 with 62 home runs in 267 games over that stretch.

Torres couldn't sustain that level of production towards the back half of his Yankees career, slashing .262/.330/.414 from 2021 to 2024, and it began to feel like he would benefit from a change of scenery.

After posting a .709 OPS and -11 DRS at second last season, the Detroit Tigers took a gamble on the 28-year-old and signed him to a one-year deal worth $15 million in December.

The Tigers have followed up their magical run to the playoffs last year by jumping out to an incredible start this season with the league's best record at 42-23. Torres has played an instrumental role in their success, as he's tied for the second-most fWAR of any qualified second baseman in the American League with 1.1 while hitting .263/.377/.392 in 223 trips to the plate.

He's been incredibly unlucky all year as well, evidenced by an expected weighted on-base average (.402), expected batting average (.294) and expected slugging percentage (.532) that all suggest there's plenty more in the tank.

Torres has suddenly developed one of the best plate approaches in the league too, as his walk (14.3 percent) and strikeout (12.1 percent) rates have significantly improved from his career marks in those categories of 9.4 and 19.8 percent, respectively. He also places in the 100th percentile in chase rate at 15.6 percent, per Baseball Savant.

Realistically, the Yankees were never bringing Torres back. They didn't even extend him an offer, per his own words during his introductory Zoom call in Detroit, and the relationship between the two parties felt broken to some extent.

Be that as it may, Torres would make all the difference in the world if he were playing second base everyday for the Yankees instead of LeMahieu, and perhaps the organization is rethinking its decision to let him leave.

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