Should the Yankees hold off on calling up Gleyber Torres?

Let’s face it, the Yankees need a breath of life. I’m not going to sit here and claim their season is over or that they’re doomed, but I’m also not going to ignore the fact that they’re bad right now. They need something to get them going. Something that’ll help them reel off seven or eight wins a row to start feeling good about themselves. How about Gleyber Torres?

Everyone’s familiar with Torres at this point. He’s the top prospect in the Yankees system and one of the top prospects in all of baseball. He’d have made his major league debut by now if it weren’t for needing Tommy John surgery last year. All winter long there was talk of him finally getting his shot this year and even talk of possibly getting that shot as early as Opening Day.

Opening Day was never likely because of the opportunity to gain an extra year of control on Torres. Torres made the decision easier by having a poor spring training, so the Yankees were able to send him to the minors to shake off the rust. The rust is sitting back in Tampa I guess, because Torres has been raking for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. As of Wednesday, the service time is no longer an issue. So the Yankees should call Torres up, right?

Ask me a week ago and my answer would’ve been a resounding yes. Right now? I’m not so sure. If the Yankees do decide to call Torres up, I’m sure it’d be the right decision, but I’m left wondering if it might make sense to keep him down in the minors a bit longer.

It makes sense to bring Torres up now, especially considering they secured the extra year of control. The Yankees have been stumbling and bumbling, to put it lightly, and could use the potential surge Torres could bring. But that’s my problem with calling him up now.

After Tuesday’s clusterbunt of a loss to the Marlins, Brian Cashman was asked about Torres and whether he’d be called up soon.

As much as I want to see Gleyber Torres in the majors and want to see what he can do, I think I agree with the sentiment here. Besides Torres hitting well for the RailRiders, the biggest driving force behind the desire to call him up has been the poor play of the Yankees. I’m hesitant to call him up to be some sort of savior.

That just seems like way too much pressure and if he struggles at all, could really mess with him. People started booing Giancarlo Stanton after about a week, and I have no reason to believe fans would be patient with Torres. Especially with the team not playing well and Torres being looked upon to inject life into the team.

If the Yankees were playing to their true talent level and everything was clicking, then it’d be a separate story. Let him come up and experience a good and healthy atmosphere and help the team out. But asking him to lift the team completely? It just doesn’t seem like the right time. There’s too much negativity right now.

Even if the timing was right, it wasn’t that long ago that Torres looked extremely rusty in spring training. Let’s make sure he’s truly ready instead of rushing him up because of a few good games. It’s not just with his bat either. Torres also has to be ready defensively. Aaron Boone mentioned that if Torres were to get called up, they don’t want to shift him around too much positionally.

Possibly because of Brandon Drury going down with migraines, Torres has been focusing on third base a lot recently. The problem is that over the last few games, Miguel Andujar’s bat has started to come around. He was the only bright spot in Tuesday’s loss. This isn’t the time to take playing time away from him. The only place they could or should give him playing time right now is at second base.

While both Tyler Wade and Neil Walker have been underwhelming and the signs are troubling, it’s too early to give up on them completely. And when the Yankees do call up Torres, I’m sure the goal is to have him up for good. A couple weeks into April isn’t the time to hit the panic button and mess with things.

There are many reasons to call up Gleyber Torres now and if that’s what the Yankees ultimately decide, I’m sure it’ll be the right decision. I do have faith in Brian Cashman. However, it doesn’t seem like that’s the way they’re leaning and I think I’m okay with that. In fact, I think I support it.

This April has also been exceptionally cold, so cold that Torres actually stiffened up and had to be taken out of a game. It might make sense to wait until the weather and the team warm up a bit before calling up Torres.