TORREON, Mexico — The swing that once made him a Mexican League MVP is back, and so is the confidence that comes with it.
Nick Torres is raking again in the league where he built his name. Since rejoining the Algodoneros de Union Laguna this summer, the 33-year-old has looked like the hitter who terrorized pitchers south of the border for years, not the one who quietly stalled at Double-A in the Yankees system.
That contrast is stark. In the Mexican League, Torres has long been a star. In the Yankees organization, his stay was short, modest and over almost as soon as it began.
The numbers frame the whole story. With Somerset, the Yankees’ Double-A affiliate, Torres hit .247 with two home runs and 11 RBIs in 40 games before his release in July. Back home in Mexico, by his own account, he has surged past a .400 average with power to match.
A resurgence like that would normally be a feel-good footnote, a veteran finding his level again after a big league organization moved on. But Torres did not let it rest there.
He turned his comeback into a critique. And because the bat is producing again, the words landed harder than a fringe roster cut usually would.
What Torres said, and what the response revealed, has turned one player’s brief stint in pinstripes into a debate about how the Yankees teach hitting.
Torres takes aim at how the Yankees develop hitters
The remarks came on social media, where Torres weighed in on a broader argument about analytics in baseball started by former MLB All-Star Jeff Kent. Torres framed his Yankees experience against his years in Mexico, and drew a sharp line between the two.
“2026 was my first year back with an MLB org since 2018 and Jeff is spot on here,” Torres wrote. “After 6 years of ball in the Mexican League which is old school, rugged and ALL ABOUT WINNING the only thing that matters is scoring more runs than the other team.”
The implication was pointed. In Torres’ telling, the Mexican League drilled winning and run production, while he suggested the Yankees emphasized beating the analytics, teaching players to chase individual metrics rather than the scoreboard. He also argued the numbers-driven approach does not reward moving a runner from first to third, the small winning play he valued.
It is worth a caveat. The widely circulated version of Torres’ thread summarizes parts of it rather than preserving every original sentence, so some of his argument reaches readers secondhand. The core contention, though, is clear enough. He believes the two systems prize different things.
The rebuttal: Yankees’ farm leads in exactly what Torres praised
Here is the part of the story that complicates the criticism, and it comes straight from the data. If the charge is that the Yankees do not teach scoring runs and winning, their minor league results argue the opposite.
On the day Torres was released, July 7, Somerset ranked first in its league in runs scored by roughly 30 runs, first in run differential and sat 2.5 games out of first place. In the weeks since, the Patriots have led all of Double-A in home runs and RBIs, the latter by more than 40 over the next team in their league, while ranking near the top in average, slugging and OPS.
The pattern holds up the ladder. The Yankees’ Low-A affiliate in Tampa has led its league in average, slugging, OPS, runs and RBIs while pushing toward the playoffs. Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre has ranked comfortably inside the top third of a 20-team International League in most offensive categories. The system, by the plain measure Torres invoked, scores plenty and wins plenty.
That is the uncomfortable friction at the center of this. The organization Torres accused of ignoring run production runs some of the highest-scoring affiliates in the minors. His preferred yardstick, scoring more than the other team, is one the Yankees’ farm clubs happen to lead.
Torres’ own numbers explain part of the story
The context behind the criticism matters too. Torres arrived with an enormous reputation, having hit .347 with 27 home runs, 79 RBIs and a 1.155 OPS for Union Laguna in 2025 to win Mexican League MVP. He had not played affiliated ball in the United States since 2018, when his path ran through the Texas Rangers system after San Diego drafted him in the fourth round in 2014.
At Double-A, that production did not follow. A player who had dominated a veteran league for six seasons posted a sub-.700 OPS against younger pitching in a new environment, and the Yankees moved on after 40 games. For a proud hitter, the fall from MVP to release in a matter of months is the kind of jolt that can sharpen a grievance.
None of that proves Torres wrong about his personal experience. He may well have clashed with someone in the Yankees‘ player development chain, or found the instruction a poor fit for a 33-year-old with his track record. A bad individual experience is entirely plausible, and he is entitled to describe it.
What the record does not support is the broader claim. Painting the Yankees as an organization indifferent to scoring and winning collides with what their affiliates are actually doing across every level of the system this season.
For now, Torres is back where he thrives, driving in runs for Union Laguna in the Mexican League’s stretch run, while the Yankees continue a September push of their own in the Bronx. His brief time in pinstripes is over. The argument he started on his way out is the part still traveling.
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