The New Shift Rule Could Affect The Performance Of Gleyber Torres
Major League Baseball may implement a rule change down the road. The change would be essentially heavily enforcing the shift, starting at the double-A level. There would be two men on each side no matter the batter as well as making the infielders stay on the infield dirt. If the big leagues adopt it in the next few years, the rule change will affect everyone but in particular, Yankees shortstop Gleyber Torres may feel the full wrath of it.
Gleyber Torres has a ton of power in his bat hitting as many as 38 home runs in 2019 but is known not to be the most fleet of foot. The current shifts on most batters have benefitted Gleyber as a shortstop, making it less of a task for him to cover the ground necessary for the position. The New York Yankees last season shifted 35.5% of the time on batters which is 15th in the league. If worse comes to worst, third baseman Gio Urshela can make up for Torres covering the ground needed.
“He’ll always have his issues with covering a lot of space, so not having the shift would hurt. If they bring that to the majors, he’d be exposed more than some others.” -An American League Scout
Despite these potential shortcomings, the Yankees are taking the initiative to progress Torres as an impactful infielder this Spring Training. This is a far cry from his less-than-received arrival at the Yankees training camp last year out of shape and not prepared. He is working a lot on his defense these days with Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza. Torres claims he feels better than he has at 200%. There is no telling how the shift will affect him, but if he keeps putting in the work to improve there should be no problem. But who knows.
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