The New York Yankees may have missed out on re-signing Juan Soto, but they otherwise can feel pretty good about their offseason â highlighted by the $218 million signing of former Atlanta Braves lefty Max Fried.
Fried has been the one steady force in the Yankees starting rotation. With an American League-best 10 pitcher wins against just two losses and 2.18 ERA, the 31-year-old is neck-and-neck with the Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal in the AL Cy Young Award race.
The Yankees also signed or otherwise acquired former National League MVP Paul Goldschmidt to play first base, closer Devin Williams, and outfielder Cody Bellinger as well as a couple of lesser-known players. All in all, a highly productive run of offseason activity.
Move Yankees Failed to Make Causing Regret
But one of their most important moves may have been one they did not make, and that one is coming back to haunt the Yankees now.
The Yankees and Brian Cashman â who now in his 28th year is the longest-serving general manager in Yankee history and also longest tenured among all current MLB GMs â simply decided to take a hard pass when it came to re-upping their second baseman of the past seven years, 28-year-old Gleyber Torres.
Signed at age 17 by the Chicago Cubs prior to the 2014 season, as an international amateur free agent out of Caracas, Venezuela, Torres went to the Yankees at the 2016 trade deadline as part of a deal that sent closer Aroldis Chapman from the Bronx to the Windy City.
The Yankees called him up to the Major League club on April 22, 2018, and Torres held down the right side of the middle infield at Yankee Stadium ever since.
Until this year. Testing free agency for the first time, Torres found â he later said â that the Yankees showed no interest in keeping him and never even made him a contract offer.
“I think they have other priorities and I’m not on the list,â Torres said, as quoted by the New York sports media outlet SNY.
On December 27, Torres received a late Christmas present â a $15 million, one-year contract from the Detroit Tigers. Torres went on to repay the Tigers for their generosity, and repay the Yankees too, in a way.
Yankee Fans Not Happy With Team After All-Star Vote
On Wednesday, MLB revealed results of the 2025 All-Star voting for the starting lineups in both leagues. The leading vote-getter at second base, and the starting second baseman for the AL in the 95th All-Star Game, to played July 15 at Truist Park in Atlanta, Georgia â Gleyber Torres.
Needless to say, Yankee fans are not happy.
“Torres didnât just go off and quietly prove people wrong â heâs the starting second baseman in this yearâs All-Star Game. Thatâs called vindication, and itâs gotta feel so damn good for him,” wrote Robert Casey, founder of the Bleeding Yankees Blue blog. “He gets to shove it right back in the Yankeesâ face with that sweet All-Star selection. You reap what you sow, and right now the Yankees are reaping a whole lot of infield chaos.”
“It would’ve only cost the New York Yankees one year and $15 million to bring Gleyber Torres back to the Bronx, perhaps even less to stay with the team he’d spent his whole career with. Instead, Brian Cashman and Co. elected to let him walk out the door to rely on Jazz Chisholm Jr. and D.J. LeMahieu,” Cody Williams of Fansided wrote earlier this week. “The Yankees have to be regretting that choice ever since.”
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