How Gleyber Torres of the Yankees Got Back to His Old Approach

When M.L.B. returned, so too did Torres’s power. He batted .257 with 24 home runs and a .451 slugging percentage. His .194 isolated power, a metric that measures a player’s raw power by subtracting his batting average from his slugging percentage, ranked second among the league’s second basemen, behind Houston’s Jose Altuve. Torres’s average exit velocity jumped 3.3 miles per hour from the season before, the largest year-over-year improvement in M.L.B.

Last year would have been even better for Torres if not for a career-low walk rate (6.8 percent) and the worst 30-game slump of his career. From July 30 to Sept. 5, Torres had a .441 O.P.S. and struck out in 33.9 percent of his 124 plate appearances. The beginning of this period coincided with rumors that he could be traded before the Aug. 2, 2022, deadline. Shortly after the deadline passed, it was reported that the Yankees had nearly dealt him to the Miami Marlins for the right-handed starter Pablo López. Torres has said the trade talks affected him.

This past off-season, Torres returned to Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, where he grew up, to play in the country’s winter league. The homecoming served two purposes. He would get to play in front of his family and friends, and he wanted to improve his recognition of breaking and off-speed pitches. Most of the pitchers in the league are older and can no longer overpower hitters with velocity, so they rely on baffling batters with junk. His goal, he said: “Don’t strike out a lot.”

So far, so good. His chase rate against breaking and off-speed pitches was 22.9 percent entering Monday’s game, down from 26.3 percent last season, according to Statcast.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/sports/baseball/gleyber-torres-yankees.html