The Detroit Tigers signed former New York Yankees middle infielder Gleyber Torres to a one-year, $15 million deal on Friday.
The contract includes a one-time assignment bonus of $500,000 for the two-time All-Star, who turned 28 earlier this month.
Torres batted .257 with 15 homers and 63 RBIs in 154 games during the 2024 season, adding two homers and eight RBIs in 14 postseason games for the World Series runners-up.
The Venezuela native is a career .265 hitter with 138 home runs and 441 RBIs in 888 regular-season games over seven seasons in New York. He finished third in the American League Rookie of the Year voting in 2018 and made the All-Star team in 2018 and 2019.
Defensively, Torres played exclusively at second base for the Yankees in each of the past two seasons. He has made 601 career starts at second base and 233 at shortstop.
His arrival in Detroit means that Colt Keith will move from second base, where he started 125 games as a 2024 rookie, to first base, team president of baseball operations Scott Harris said, according to multiple reports.
At the winter meetings in Dallas earlier this month, Harris said Keith was doing offseason work at first base.
That leaves Spencer Torkelson without a defined role — or a guaranteed spot on the Opening Day roster — with the Tigers heading into spring training.
The No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 MLB Draft, Torkelson has struggled at the plate in his 361 career games over three seasons. He has a batting average of .221 and an on-base percentage of .300, with 49 homers, 159 RBIs and 375 strikeouts.
In 92 games last season, Torkelson batted .219 with just 75 hits. He was sent to Triple-A Toledo and hit .239 with 11 home runs and 43 RBIs in 58 games.
–Field Level Media
