"You, sir, are no Jogginson Canó!"

 

Ah, bliss! "Forced" to spend a working weekend upstate at the lovely hamlet of Pine Plains, far from the hellish air of NYC. What a wonderful part of the world!

Even better, the airbnb I was at did not have anything resembling news or sports stations, so saw only a few minutes of your New York Yankees, glimpsed on a bar TV near the end of the Saturday night win.

Then it was back home, to watch right off Gleyber Torres waving at a routine throw from the outfield as if he were warming up his swing for a tennis game, thereby allowing the Red Sox to move the eventual tying run into position in what became an(other) exasperating, extra-inning loss.

Folks, from everything I looked at regarding this weekend series—from everything I've seen of the Yankees and that wonderful corporate entity known as MLB of late—this is terrible baseball.

This is Dead Ball era baseball, without the strategy or the speed, all the stealing and hit-and-running. This is 1960s-era baseball without the nightly Dance of the Gods, Bob Gibson decking Henry Aaron with some chin music and Aaron getting back up and hitting the ball out of the park. 

No, this is not that. This is the Worst. Baseball. Ever.

This is baseball presented nightly by men—whether in the front office or on the field—who frankly don't seem to care that much. And at the center of it all is The Original Gangster Next Jeter, the man who was supposed to lead us back to the Series and be the crowning glory of Brian Cashman's career, Gleyber "What Me Worry" Torres.

Remember, it was Torres, NOT Judge who was supposed to be the keystone of the new dynasty that Cashie was so carefully crafting.

There has been a tendency, of late, to compare Gleyber to our own, dearly departed Robinson Canó. We call him things such as "Jogginson Torres." I think it should stop. I don't think Gleyber is even worthy of that insult.

Not to go all Lloyd Bentsen on your asses.  But gentlemen, I watched Jogginson Canó play, don'tcha know. I watched him play in a World Series. I watched him win a World Series. Gleyber Torres, sirs, is no Jogginson Canó.

 —Did Robinson Canó juice? Absolutely, the wonderful cheating bastard. That's what will keep him from getting in the HOF, at least for many years. And I do not approve of any juicing. 

—Was Robinson Canó generally a poor postseason player? Yup. And usually, Torres has been a better one. But not for years. The Gleyber is 6 for his last 38 in October, going back to 2020, with 0 homers and 2 ribbies—yet another indication of his ongoing decline.

—Did Robinson Canó leave us for the wilds of Seattle, under the guidance of that great sports mind, Jay-Z? Yes, he did. But all that meant, in the end, was that we got to miss his worst years and the revelation of the aforementioned cheating.

—Was Robinson Canó known, at times, when not in the heat of battle to, well, JOG a bit toward first base in a less-than-vital game? Yes, he was.

But what I can add is that, for his last 5 years in the Bronx, Robbie Canó played about as brilliant an all-around second base as I've seen this side of Little Joe Morgan. 

In that time, he averaged 76 extra-base hits a year, while batting .314, and probably deserved at least one AL MVP award over his fellow juicers. Winner of 5 Silver Slugger awards and 2 Gold Gloves with us, he would have made the Hall and no doubt replaced Joe "Flash" Gordon as the greatest Yankees second sacker ever (if not, you know, for the cheating).

Give The Gleyber credit for not cheating. That's about all the credit he deserves. 

After Sunday's fateful flub, many of the Knights of the Press Box were willing to praise Torres as a stand-up guy, for owning his egregious miscue. But what he was really doing was constructing a lie, right in front of them, to excuse himself.

"The error is on me. I should've grabbed the ball. It was nothing difficult," Gleyber began.  But then he added that, "I think I looked too fast to [see] the runner and just missed the ball..."

The real problem, he continued—the story growing as he spoke, like some school kid expanding on just how that dog ate his homework—was that he "tried to catch it really fast and maybe throw to first base [behind the runner, Kiké Hernández]."

Right. Because that's the kind of savvy, heads-up play you see Gleyber executing all the time at second base, whirling and throwing to catch an errant runner taking too big a turn.

Look, Torres was no more hoping to catch Hernández—a utility player with 15 stolen bases in 10 years—off base than he was the Dalai Lama. He simply fell asleep out in the field, as we have seen him do time and time again over the last four seasons. Fell asleep in a needed, big game, against our leading rivals with 46,000 fans in the seats and the team desperately needing to steal a win.

Only a Brian Cashman—stuck up once again by Theo Epstein—could've ever assumed this guy would be the Yankees shortstop of the future. He was a dismal defensive failure at the position, and let it ruin his hitting.

But Gleyber is also not an especially good-fielding second baseman, and getting worse. 

His Sunday swing at that ball was his 6th error of the season, most in the league; he had 7 in all of 2022. And that's not because he's getting to so many more balls. His range factor is right along the league average. And unlike Robbie, who repeatedly led AL second basemen in putouts, assists, DPs, range, and old-fashioned fielding percentage, Torres has never come close to leading the Junior Circuit in anything.

The fact is, like so many of the Young Gun Yankees of 2017 who were supposed to lead us back to the glory days, The Gleyber, at just 26, is already a player in long-term decline. 

As many of you know, I'm a skeptic when it comes to fielding stats in general, and especially as to WAR. But those stats, too, tell the story of decline. Gleyber's defensive WAR this year is 0.2. It's never been above last year's 1.4. His overall WAR is 12.5—6.6 of which came in his first two, heady seasons, 2018-2019, when we thought we really had something. 

And stats aside, as we have all seen with our own two eyes, Torres just isn't that much into the game of baseball. The Yankees, stupidly, encourage the worst of these tendencies. Check out Ma Boone's bizarre quote after Sunday's debacle:

"One of the things Gleyber does really well defensively is he plays the game with ease. So you've got to strike that balance, you've got to be careful."

PLAYS THE GAME WITH EASE??? Our manager is now handing out style points??? Does anything better exemplify how ancillary the game of baseball is to the Yankees organization, from HAL on down? Expecting an admonitory benching or reaming out? Sorry, my friends. Those days are past. Welcome to the Age of Gleyber.

Ah, Pine Plains! How I long for ye!