The Gleyber Torres Trade Might Actually Prove Brian Cashman is a Time Traveling Wizard

Yesterday the Yankees had a 2009-esque “Never Say Die” comeback win against the Houston Astros. Even though the bottom of the order was due up, the Yankees rallied and retook the lead. The biggest hit of the game came off the bat of rookie phenom Gleyber Torres.

Even though he’s just 21 years of age, Gleyber has come up and put together professional at bat after professional at bat. I will say this with confidence: Gleyber is the best 9 hitter in all of baseball. The amount of top prospects that get called up in baseball and at the least struggle out of the gate are too many to keep track of. In his first 12 games Gleyber is hitting .317 with four multi-hit games. You would think he’s been in the league for five years with the way he’s played.

I knew right away he was special with the glove when I saw him slap a tag on an errant throw to second in one of his first games.

It reminded me immediately of Chicago’s Javy Baez. The Cubs second baseman’s trademark is his incredible ability to find the runner almost involuntarily and get the out. Gleyber has this same exact trait and has done this three times already. He’s special. He’s so smooth and has a cannon arm. The best way I saw someone describe him was he has a second baseman’s body, with a centerfielder’s range, and a shortstop’s cannon arm. I think he’s going to be a guy we pop on YouTube in five years and can just sit back and watch his defensive gems for 15 minutes straight. The best comparison is a Javy Baez who is much more polished at the plate. He’s not Robinson Cano and anyone that tells you that is just being lazy. Gleyber will never hit 40 home runs in a season, but he might win a few batting titles here and there.

So how did we get such a player? To refresh your memory, back in 2016 the Yankees sat just a few games over .500 as the trade deadline loomed. For the first time in a while, the question came up of whether Cashman would become a seller during the deadline. It’s never in the Yankee blood to give up on a season midway, but Cash saw a opportunity because he’s a wizard who can see the future better than Dr. Stephen Strange.

Cashman dangled Aroldis Chapman to the contending Chicago Cubs, who desperately needed a lockdown closer to allow Hector Rondon to become an 8th inning guy. In exchange for what would be a curse breaking World Series title, the Yankees got back Billy McKinney, Rashad Crawford, Adam Warren, and of course Gleyber Torres. The way the story went from there was the Cubs won the World Series thanks in large part to a better bullpen with Hector Rondon setting up Roldy. The following offseason the Yankees signed back Chapman to be the closer of this team for the next five years.

Now in 2018 Gleyber has arrived, Chapman is our closer, and Adam Warren is still an effective piece in the pen. At the end of the day Brian Cashman acquired Gleyber Torres for free. We essentially rented out Chapman for a few months and in exchange got a top 5 prospect in of baseball who looks all the part of being a superstar for this team. Cash might be the smartest man in human history.

Originally the Didi Gregorius with Arizona, where all he gave up was Shane Greene, was seen as his biggest heist, but if Gleyber keeps this up I mean my goodness gracious.  Imagine being a person who wanted Girardi to stay over Cash? I’d imagine that’s a very, very dumb person to interact with.

As always, In Cashman We Trust