The Crane Pool Forum

I realize that everything somebody does is amplified and distorted when they are on the highest-profile team, playing in the post-season, but ... is this guy the laziest player in Major League Baseball?

I used to have some small amount of bitterness, because he came up in parallel to Amed Rosario, and he blossomed in a way that Rosario didn't. But during those four games the Mets were playing against the Yankees, he was making me feel downright confident. In close games and blowouts, on the basepaths and on defense, it just always looked like he could barely be bothered to put one leg in front of the other, and everything I've seen in this post-season has reinforced that. He looks like a kid being forced to do a chore while his friends are playing.

I realize that all Major Leaguers must be, in some context, hard workers, and so he must be, but in the between-the-lines context, it's not showing up.

I don't know how he is still with his team. He knows people are watching these games, right?

Going from two 800+ OPS seasons to start his career [820 & 871 in 2018-19] to an average of 743 since (709 this year) isn't helping him
win friends or influence people either.

There was a play in one of the earlier round games where, on a bloop to short RCF, Torres never moved as the ball fell just in front of a charging Soto for a single.
I didn't see the play as I was listening on radio at the time but, shyeeet, even John Sterling noticed and commented.
In the same game he also failed to move on the pitch despite there being two outs and a 3-2 count.

And just recently going up is this video by Some Guy on the Internet (SGotI) saying this exact thing (or possibly programming a computer voice to say the same thing). He even uses the same caveats I do, but the example clips he includes are damning, even if (a) there are none from the two Yankee/Met series this year, and (2) he repeats several.

Maybe he's depressed. Fame, wealth, success, none of it guarantees you're happy

MFY fans have been saying for years that he plays like his head is firmly planted in his posterior. I'm not sure.
He seems to me like the kid in high school who is very smart but doesn't think he has to study. They used to call them talented underachievers.
Later

Contrast Gleyber Torres's lack of effort with the ass busting hustle of Brandon Nimmo. Brandon hustles (on routine and tough plays) more than most MLB players, while Torres is the second coming of Manny Machado, but with far less talent and accomplishment. I don't even want a slacker like Torres' on my team.

The good news about that for Gleyber is that he's now a FA without compensation attached.
The bad is that the QO might be more than he'll make on the free market (the Yanx seem to think so) although
he's still young enough to get a couple of years out of his next contract even if it's at a lesser rate.