Tigers to sign longtime Yankees second baseman

The Tigers and free agent infielder Gleyber Torres are reportedly in agreement on a one-year, $15M contract, pending the completion of a physical. Torres, an Octagon client, is expected to be Detroit’s regular second baseman in the upcoming season.

Torres, who turned 28 earlier this month, has spent his entire big league career in Yankee pinstripes. The once-vaunted top prospect looked like a breakout star in 2019 when he socked 38 home runs in just 144 games, but Torres wound up settling in as a solid regular at second base rather than the superstar shortstop he appeared to be on the cusp of becoming in ’19. Since that stellar 2019 campaign — which came in MLB’s juiced-ball season — Torres has slashed .261/.332/.411. That’s about 9% better than average, by measure of wRC+ (which weights for home park and league run-scoring environment in a given season).

The 2024 season was shaping up to be a career-worst showing for Torres at the halfway point. Through his first 80 games, he turned in an anemic .215/.294/.333 slash (81 wRC+) with a 23.9% strikeout rate that was well north of the 19.3% mark he’d posted over the prior five seasons. Torres righted the ship in late June and rebounded to a .298/.365/.421 slash with a much-improved 17.3% strikeout rate down the stretch.

Torres steps into a Detroit infield that’s lacking in any real certainty. Colt Keith, who hit .285/.330/.429 in 445 plate appearances after a terrible start to his rookie season, appears to be the only other infield lock. He played second base in 2024 but has experience at the hot corner. Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press writes that the organization prefers not to play Keith at third due to some injury concerns regarding his right shoulder. Keith has taken reps at first base, and while he’s yet to play there in a professional game, he could get further work there this spring in the event of a potential position shift.

Meanwhile, Javier Baez is signed for three more seasons at $24M per year, but he’s played himself out of a starting role. He will eventually be a release candidate if he can’t rebound to at least some extent (though the Tigers have suggested this winter that they still see a role for Baez in ’25). Former top pick Spencer Torkelson belted 32 homers in 2023 but flailed through an ugly 2024 campaign and has yet to establish himself as a viable big league regular. Trey Sweeney showed a big league-ready glove at shortstop but didn’t hit in 36 big league games during last year’s second-half debut. Top prospect Jace Jung drew heaps of walks (16%) in 94 plate appearances late last season but is probably ticketed for Triple-A work or (speculatively speaking) some exposure to left field. Matt Vierling could also factor in at the hot corner, though he can play in the outfield.

The glut of infield options, even with many of them unproven, gives the Tigers some flexibility about handling the rest of the offseason. Young players like Sweeney and Jung would command considerable trade interest. Torkelson is a viable change-of-scenery candidate, especially if the Tigers plan to give Keith a prominent role at first base. Torkelson could factor into the first base/DH mix, but he’s hardly a lock to do so after hitting .221/.300/.392 through his first 361 big league games.

The Tigers have been connected to free-agent third baseman Alex Bregman. However, that’d be a considerably larger signing than they’ve made at any point under current president of baseball operations Scott Harris. Some of the links there are surely due to the presence of former Astros skipper A.J. Hinch in the Detroit dugout. Petzold reported earlier in the week that Bregman has become more of a priority for the Tigers as the offseason has worn on, but the addition of Torres clouds the infield mix a bit more. A fit could come together, particularly if the Tigers want to move someone like Jung in a deal for rotation help.

Regarding payroll, there’s no reason to think the Tigers can’t make another prominent addition after adding Torres. They entered the offseason with only Baez, Keith and Kenta Maeda on guaranteed deals for the upcoming season. Torres and fellow free agent pickup Alex Cobb have pushed the team to a projected $109M payroll, per RosterResource’s projections. That’s nowhere near the team’s franchise-record $200M payroll from 2017. And while that level of spending came under the ownership of the late Mike Ilitch, even Ilitch’s son, Chris, has authorized payrolls as high as $135M in recent seasons (2022).

Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported that Torres had agreed to a deal with the Tigers. ESPN’s Jesse Rogers first reported the terms.