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BP Annual Player Comments

Year		Comment
2014		There’s always been something confounding about Torres. He’s clearly a gifted athlete, with an excess of natural speed and strength, but he only briefly put it all together in an outlier 2010 season. A natural righty who picked up switch-hitting late, Torres has always struggled from the left side, but in 2013 he was downright dismal against right-handers—he got on base against them less than 26 percent of the time and struck out more than 26 percent of the time. His league-average-ish production against lefties buoyed his overall line, but that unremarkable final slash is unlikely to lure a manager into promising him full-time play. Torres’ season ended in late August, when he hit the 60-day DL to have surgery on his Achilles tendon, putting him one year further from 2010.
2013		Be honest: If you hadn't already looked at Torres' stats above, how old would you have thought he was? Torres just jumped into national semi-prominence in 2010, yet he's already 35. He adds value on the bases and in center and will happily take a walk, but if he can't wring enough pop out of his slap-hitter's body to push his BABIP above the league average, his batting average won't be high enough to make him more than a reserve outfielder. At his age, late-bloomer or not, he's not a good bet to rebound, especially when you see calf, achilles, and hamstring strains in his injury history.
2012		Torres's power deserted him in 2011—not just the lost home runs, which you can see, but an entire spray chart creeping in ominously. It's those lazy fly balls that make it impossible to brush aside his BABIP drop or put too much hope in a still-strong walk rate. His bat has slowed, especially from the right side, though the regression isn't for lack of effort. Torres is a workout fiend who worried the Giants coaching staff with how much pressure he put on himself during slumps. He had to take sleeping pills to get rest in 2011. As a leadoff hitter, he was a destructive part of the Giants' league-worst offense; as an excellent center fielder making just $2.2 million, he was still a bargain. After another arbitration raise, the Giants' trade for Melky Cabrera, and the impending ascension of Gary Brown, the Giants dealt him to the Mets, where his loss of power could become even more worrisome if the new dimensions don't lead to expected results.
2011		Torres also spent his first full season in the major leagues in 2010, but he’s six years older than Schierholtz and had been bouncing around the minors for 12 years with six organizations (one of them twice). A high-school sprinter in his native Puerto Rico, Torres didn’t play baseball until his senior year, was drafted by the Tigers after just three scholastic seasons, and, because of his speed, was tutored to be a slap-hitting leadoff man. It wasn’t until he returned to the Tigers organization nearly 10 years later that he changed his approach, doing so after finally taking the attention-deficit disorder medication prescribed for him five years earlier. Adopting a heavier bat and patterning his swing after Albert Pujols’, Torres completely revamped his approach. A career .257/.352/.321 hitter in the majors and minors combined over the previous nine seasons, Torres has hit .285/.361/.489 in 1,831 plate appearance since. That seems like a large enough sample to suggest that he can repeat his age-32 breakout season, giving the Giants one of the best center fielders in baseball and Aaron Rowand for a combined $12.5 million.
2010		A bum hamstring kept Torres shelved for most of the first half, but in the second, finally given his first real opportunity to play in the majors since his participation on the 119-loss Tigers of 2003, he shined as a bench bat. Mostly, he put the hurt on lefties, rapping out 13 extra-base hits in 78 PA against them (including six triples, four homers, making for a hell of a Strat card) while spot-starting at all three positions. He won't slug .500 again, but because he can run and he's always been able to handle center, he may finally settle in as a useful bench weapon.
2005		Torres' value waxes and wanes with his batting average, which was at high tide in Charlotte last year. That might be enough to get him a second chance as a reserve outfielder, but players with this skill set are a dime a dozen, and the memory of his underperformance as a Tiger will linger. With Texas, he might get to stick as a fifth outfielder, but it's just as likely that he's booked for an exciting all-expense–paid tour of PCL cities for years to come.
2004		Nook Logan, take a look: This could be your career in two years. Ordinarily, Torres would have no business ever playing regularly in the major leagues. But given that none of their center field options are going to be with the team for long, the Tigers might as well suck it up offensively with the player whose glove gives their young pitchers the best chance to develop.
2003		Though selected for the 2002 Futures Game, the Tigers showed their lack of confidence in Torres’s future by trading for retread Gene Kingsale in the off-season. Torres will now have to beat out both Lombard and Kingsale, and Kingsale is reportedly a favorite of Trammell’s from his coaching days in San Diego. A weak year in Toledo certainly didn’t help Torres’s stock. The organization also feels Torres muscled up too much in the mistaken assumption that he can add some power to his game. If it decreases his speed or his range, it will only hurt his chances.
2002		The best of the Tigers’ many fleet-footed young outfielders, Torres was voted the best defensive outfielder in the Eastern League and is expected to man center field in Comerica Park no later than 2003. His development was interrupted by an injury to his right (throwing) shoulder that ended his season in July. The Tigers think he’s going to be a prototypical leadoff hitter, which is asking too much of Torres: offensively, he’s more Gary Pettis than Kenny Lofton.
2001		Ninety-two bases on balls at West Michigan in 1999 indicated that Andres Torres could mature into a respectable hitter. A year later, it happened. Torres added 62 points to his batting average while maintaining his plate discipline in the Florida State League, a tough loop for hitters. The Tigers see him as their leadoff man of the future, a great defensive center fielder who can fly. I’ll hold off on handing him the keys to Comerica Park until he conquers Double-A. Torres is going to have to post an OBP close to .400 to pull his weight in the majors, because his slap-and-dash style doesn’t generate any power.

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