Thank you, Mr. Cashman.

Hey, I know: it's hard to admit that you were wrong. Harder, still, to admit that maybe your entire operating philosophy for your whole career has been wrong. But that's what Brian Cashman managed to do—or at least take the first step toward doing—when he did not make Gleyber Torres a qualifying offer the other day.

That must have been hard for him. Gleyber was, after all, Cashie's first attempt to build his own Derek Jeter—a near obsession to our GM—when he brought him over from the Cubs for the Aroldis Chapman loaner. And at first it looked like The Brain had struck gold.

Gleyber was supposed to be the cornerstone, the key piece of Cashman's new youth team. Theo Epstein said he was the one thing he regretted giving up in the Aroldis deal that helped the Cubs to their first World Series win in 108 years. Which might have been just another Theo deke, but he seemed to be sincere.

Gleyber, for his part, went tearing up through the minors in 2017. Only an injury on an audacious slide across home kept him from being called up that year. And if he had been, who knows? Maybe a young, uninhibited, engaged Gleyber would have made the difference that put the Yankees over the top, and brought them a surprise World Series win.

Impossible to say—but it didn't seem to much matter. Gleyber sure looked like the real deal in his first two seasons, playing second base while the Yanks waited for Sir Didi to get old. In 2018, he hit 24 homers and had an .820 OPS, and should have been first or second as Rookie of the Year. (Both Gleyber and our Miggy got beat out by the non-rookie, Shohei Ohtani.) 

In 2019, he was even better—considerably better—with 38 homers and an .871 OPS, and if he was probably the beneficiary of the jacked-up ball that year, so what? He looked like the future.

The trouble started when the Yanks tried to slot him permanently into the shortstop position in 2020. His production plunged and he wasn't able to field the position. Instead, we got two seasons in which his errors exceeded his home runs.

Plopped back on second, he improved in 2022 and 2023, but then there was considerable backsliding this season, despite a good last month and a decent playoffs (until the World Series). 2024 was his third big-league season—out of 7—with more errors than homers. Much of the season, his power all but seemed to disappear. 

And while there were those couple good months, Gleyber once again—as always—had other months when he was, statistically, close to being the very worst player in the sport. 

Some claim that he is a top hitter in the AL, at least, among second basemen. But the stats don't actually show that. Gleyber has never won a Silver Slugger award, for instance—and in 2023, he finished 9th in the league in grounding into the most double-plays.

This brings us to his running, which is slow, at best; lazy and confused, at worst. We all remember that 9th inning in the ALDS against Boston, in which he somehow failed to beat out a very slow roller to Rafael Devers, thereby ending our season. There is a lot of that with our Mr. Torres. Someone who runs a site called "Grunt Baseball" has even put together several series of videos which he claims shows Gleyber failing to run hard to first, including in this World Series (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuRttdoiekE)

Another stat I saw claimed he was the sixth-WORST runner in the majors this past season. Running stats? Yeah, I'm dubious, too. But we've all seen the colossal screw-ups.

The fielding is even less excusable. Gleyber has now led the AL in errors at his position 3 times, once at shortstop and, in 2023 and 2024, at second. In most other fielding stats, he almost always finishes in the bottom third of the league.

Yet another inexplicable, inattentive play by Torres—fielding a routine throw from right field—cost us Game One of the Series, thereby changing the entire complexion of the Series. Nor did he redeem himself with the bat. After a big first game in which he nearly homered—nearly, but not—he went 1-16 the rest of the way, finishing at .143 with 3 walks. 

Sadly, he has never proved able to keep his mind on the game or his eye on the ball.

I don't know what happened to Gleyber. He seemed to go the way of that whole Class of '17—Bird, Fowler, Frazier, Andujar, Severino, Sanchez—all of them but Judge, wiped out by mysterious injuries or even mysteriouser declines in every aspect of their games. I'd wager a great deal of money that these were due to the Yanks' defective instructional and training methods.

But since he won't or can't overhaul the system, it's good that Brian Cashman is admitting his mistake, and tossing away one of its broken parts. Or maybe not. The Yanks should make a clean break, and open up second base to a battle royale between Jazz and the kids. But even if they won't—even if this is just a refusal to pay Gleyber's market price in the hopes of freeing several millions in salary—it's the right move.

Now, Hal & Pal will surely take that cash and go full steam after Juan Soto! Right? Right? Hey, is this thing on?