NEW YORK — A familiar name has crept back into the Yankees’ orbit at the exact moment the team has fresh reason to want it. Gleyber Torres is on the trade block in Detroit. In the Bronx, Jazz Chisholm Jr. just gave the front office something to think about.
The two storylines were not connected a week ago. They are now, at least in the minds of fans and analysts looking for a way out of an infield that suddenly feels less settled.
Torres, the Yankees’ second baseman for six seasons before he left for Detroit, has emerged as one of the most talked-about trade candidates ahead of the Aug. 3 deadline. The Tigers are fading, and his expiring contract makes him a logical chip.
That timing is what gives the speculation its hook.
The Chisholm concern that reopened the door
Chisholm was ejected in the sixth inning Sunday after arguing a check-swing strikeout and spiking his helmet, costing the Yankees their leadoff hitter in a one-run game they could not afford to play short. It capped an eventful stretch. He had already drawn a public rebuke from manager Aaron Boone for taking the field with a lollipop in his mouth and had a separate dust-up over a dirt camera in Detroit. He left the clubhouse Sunday before reporters arrived, declining to address the ejection.
The performance has not matched the noise. Chisholm entered the finale hitting .225 with a .713 OPS. Boone, asked about him before the game, made clear he is still waiting on more.
“I feel like he’s been solid now for a couple months, but I always feel like with Jazz, there’s so much more,” Boone said. “We’re waiting for him to really catch fire. I feel like he hasn’t caught fire yet at all this year.”
None of that means the Yankees are ready to replace him. But it is the backdrop against which a Torres reunion stops sounding far-fetched.
Why Torres is available
Torres returned to Detroit last winter on a one-year, $22.025 million deal after accepting the Tigers’ qualifying offer. That makes him a pure rental, a free agent again after this season, and exactly the kind of player a sinking team moves for prospects.
The Tigers have given them reason to consider it. After a disastrous May, Detroit has hovered around 31-44 and drifted out of the postseason race. ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel pegged Torres’s chance of being traded at 80 percent.
When healthy, he has produced. Torres is hitting .280 with a .395 on-base percentage and a 126 wRC+ over 190 plate appearances, drawing nearly as many walks as strikeouts and serving as a sparkplug atop Detroit’s order. He remains a three-time All-Star with a track record few available bats can match.
The Sporting News framed his appeal in plain terms for any contender shopping for offense.
“Torres is a three-time All-Star and has been great when on the field for the Detroit Tigers. He is batting .280 with four homers. If there’s a team looking for a right-handed bat, Torres could easily help,” Patrick McAvoy of SI.com wrote.
Where Torres would fit
The Yankees’ infield need extends beyond Chisholm. Ryan McMahon, acquired to steady third base, has scuffled at the plate. Anthony Volpe has been inconsistent at shortstop. The lineup has gone cold as a group, managing three hits in each of the final three games of the Boston sweep, a stretch that dropped New York out of first place in the American League East and a game behind the Tampa Bay Rays.
Torres could slot at second base, his natural position, and push the rest of the group into more defined roles. He knows the market, the ballpark and the spotlight. For a team starved for steady at-bats, the familiarity cuts both ways, but the bat would help.
The Yankees should trust a known quantity over their current options in October pressure, citing the struggles of McMahon and Volpe. It is the kind of logic that gains traction when a lineup stops scoring.
The catch the Yankees cannot ignore
There is a significant obstacle. Torres has landed on the injured list twice this season with a left oblique strain, the second stint coming in mid-June, just two weeks after he returned from the first. Detroit manager A.J. Hinch called it a new injury in the same region as the old one, and the recurrence has clouded Torres’s trade value.
Any team trading for him would be betting on health as much as production. That risk could lower his price, or it could scare contenders off entirely. The Tigers also have not declared themselves sellers, and a hot stretch before the deadline could change their calculus.
For now, the reunion is noise, not a negotiation. But it is louder than it was, propelled by a Yankees infield that no longer looks secure and a former cornerstone who could be had. Whether the Yankees act on it, or simply file it away, may depend on how the next month unfolds for both Chisholm and the team around him.
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