BALTIMORE — Gleyber Torres is 20 years old. It sure looks like he will be joining the Yankees this season, in the middle of a playoff race, and playing a position that he has taken on just recently.
“You know what it reminds me of a little bit?” Buck Showalter mused on Wednesday. “What we did with Manny. But we did it on the sly.”
It reminded me of Manny Machado’s 2012 adventure, too. Which is why I already had spoken with Machado about this by the time I mentioned Torres’ name to Showalter.
As the Orioles’ manager mentioned, whereas the natural shortstop Torres has been rotating among shortstop, second base and third base at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the natural shortstop Machado, then 20, played just two games at third for Double-A Bowie before getting summoned to the same job for the O’s; he had been working out privately at the hot corner. Nevertheless, Machado’s success five years ago provides a positive example for the Yankees. And a role model for Torres.
“The biggest advice I could give him is stay level-headed,” Machado said, before the Yankees concluded their series at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. “It’s the same game. It’s the same baseball game that you’ve always played your entire life. Just enjoy every moment of it.”
“What’s the old expression Billy [Martin] used to say? ‘Try as you may, you can’t screw up the really good ones,’ ” said Showalter, who got to know Martin during his final term as Yankees manager in 1988. “They will always seek to their level. Manny could play anywhere. Of course it was, you know, if you want to go to the big leagues, you’ve got to learn how to play third base. ‘OK, I’ll do that.’ ”
“My heart [was] still at shortstop. I still wanted to be a shortstop. Obviously, that’s not what God had planned for me,” Machado said. “You’ve just got to take it how it is and just enjoy the game. It’s the same game. You’re going to have to catch the ball whether you’re at third or you’re at short. You’re just going to have to make the plays and play for your team at the end of the day, especially if you’re coming up in the middle of a pennant race with the good ball club they’ve got over there.”
Machado got the call-up to the big leagues on Aug. 9, 2012, and put up a .262/.294/.445 slash line in 51 games, playing fine defense and displaying some power with seven homers, with the Orioles as they captured an American League wild-card bid while posting their first winning record since 1997. He never returned to the minors, though he returned to shortstop for seven games in 2015 and then 45 games last year, when J.J. Hardy — who occupied shortstop for Baltimore at the time of Machado’s arrival, and who re-upped with the team in the fall of 2014 — went down with a fractured left foot.
“Manny could play shortstop,” Showalter said. “But he’s so impactful at third.”
Torres’ final destination seems equally vague at the moment. For the short term of his major league debut, however, you bet on third base, thanks to Chase Headley’s struggles there with the Yankees.
Machado and the Orioles showed the upside of going for it with such an elite talent and sweating the long-term consequences later.
“I was a baby when that happened. It was fairly fast,” Machado said. He added: “Things don’t change. You’ve still got to play the game the right way. You’ve still got to do little things that you really don’t want to think about when you’re hitting 10 home runs a week. You’ve got to think about the little stuff. Getting guys over for the other guy.
“This is a team sport. You can’t win a World Series by yourself.”
The Orioles have won plenty, if not the Fall Classic, since going for it with Machado five years ago. If Torres can follow the Machado path to success, starting at age 20 switching positions for a contender, then the Yankees would be extremely satisfied.
