For many years, the Chicago Cubs have been building their team around young position players. Many of us know about the young talent that has debuted in the Major Leagues over the past few years including Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Addison Russell, Jorge Soler, and Kyle Schwarber. However, The latest buzz includes the Cubs top prospect Gleybar Torres as he was recently traded to the New York Yankees for heralded closer Aroldis Chapman. This deal was interesting in that it found two teams in unfamiliar positions with the Yankees being sellers and the Cubs being buyers. Even though Aroldis Chapman is undeniably one of the best closers in baseball, closers have a limited ceiling regarding their impact on a team compared to a middle infielder with a solid glove who can also hit. Given the Yankees and Cubs respective needs and situations, I think this trade makes sense for both teams. That being said, I wanted to evaluate Torres’ swing as he must live up to the expectations set before him in order for this trade to make long term sense for the Yankees.
Gleybar Torres has some room for improvement with the bat but the good news is that he has plenty of time given that he won’t turn twenty until December of 2016. In the breakdown above, I examine two of Torres’ swings. In general, professional hitters’ movement patterns are consistent given that they have repeated their swing over and over for many years. Torres goes against this trend in that his movement pattern is inconsistent from swing to swing. Torres shows the ability to perform elite movements but has trouble putting those movements together consistently. For instance, Torres displays a great forward load in his first swing but shows a better turn in his second. The consistency of movement is something that we talk a lot about at Baseball Rebellion because it allows the hitter to limit the number of variables in an incredibly reactionary and difficult task.
Being a Yankees fan, I am excited to see the Yankees building around young talent. With time on his side, Torres has a great opportunity to prepare for the Big Apple by grooving his swing and developing his strength and speed over the next couple of years.
Thank you for watching and reading.
Gabe Dimock – Baseball Rebellion Hitting Instructor
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Why should the hip go forward and up? Thanks!
Garrett,
Great question! We want the lower and upper half to work together to produce force through the baseball. Since the ball travels down to the hitter we want to produce force in a slightly upward direction. The back hip thrusting up and forward helps hitters to more efficiently direct their force. Thanks again for your question!
-Gabe