Gleyber Torres Could Bounce Back for the Tigers in 2025
The 2024 season was a year of inconsistent production from Torres, but there are reasons to be optimistic he can rebound in 2025.

Gleyber Torres once mashed 38 homers in a season for the Yankees. That was back in 2019 and feels like eons ago. He turned in a strong .871 OPS that year, earning a second straight All-Star selection to begin his MLB career.
At that point, nobody thought the budding young slugger would someday have to settle for a one-year deal from a low-payroll club once he reached the free-agent market.
Flash forward to today, and that is exactly where Torres finds himself. After an up-and-down trajectory over the last several seasons, he agreed to a $15 million pact to join the upstart Detroit Tigers in December.
For Torres, 2024 saw more inconsistent production, but there are some reasons to be optimistic about a potential rebound season.
A First Half to Forget for Gleyber Torres
Even though the Yankees came flying out of the gates last season, Torres got off to a dreadful start. He went without a single home run until May 2, limping along to a .215 AVG and .537 OPS over his first 32 games.
He struck out 24.3% of the time during that span, a marked uptick from his career norm, particularly compared to a career-best 14.6% in 2023.
It would take quite some time for Torres to dig out of that early-season slump. He showed spurts here and there, but the Venezuelan second baseman ultimately went into the All-Star break batting a mere .230 with eight long balls and 35 RBI across 380 plate appearances.
However, three consecutive two-hit games to close out June as well as a three-hit effort just before the break were a sign of things to come.
Stretch-Run Surge
The midsummer intermission turned out to be something Torres must have needed to reset things a bit with the bat. He popped a pair of home runs within the first week after the All-Star Game. The month of August saw him hit safely in 21 of 25 games while getting his K-rate back in order (15.9%).
Torres headed into September with his batting average up to .240, but it was during the regular season’s final month that he would really shine for the Yankees.
Gleyber Torres gives the Yankees the lead with one swing of the bat 💪 pic.twitter.com/mSJiaP47oG
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) September 12, 2024
Across his last 119 plate appearances of the campaign, Torres hammered his way to a .333/.387/.472 slash line with nine extra-base hits, 13 RBI, and 20 runs scored. He supported that bump in production with notable improvements in his batted-ball profile, particularly in line-drive rate (26.1%), chase rate (20.7%), and contact rate (83.0%).
Tigers Turnaround?
Despite the splendid September, Torres’ overall 2024 resume still showed just a 1.8 WAR, .709 OPS, and 15 home runs. On the surface, that’s quite mediocre, and the Tigers are certainly hoping for more from the free-agent addition following their surprising playoff run last year.
Being out of the New York City lights could very well help Torres. He won’t have names like Judge and Soto surrounding him this season, but up-and-coming hitters like Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter will provide solid support in the top half of the Tigers’ batting order.
If Torres can sustain those late-season improvements, a return to being an .800 OPS, mid-20s HR bat is certainly well within reasonable expectations.