Gleyber Torres, halfway through his final season under contract with the Yankees, sits in the dugout in the Bronx on a quiet afternoon, staring out at the field. He thinks of the child who first arrived, and of the man who took him in.
“The day the Yankees acquired me from the Cubs [in the 2016 trade for closer Aroldis Chapman]he received me in the minor league,” Torres said Carlos Mendoza, the longtime Yankees coach who is now a rookie Mets manager preparing for his first Metro series. “I was really nervous.”
Mendoza, during his long tenure in player development for the Yankees and afterward as Aaron Boone‘s bench coach, took on an almost parental role with Torres, a fellow Venezuelan. Torres’ Yankees career, while full of highlights and All-Star appearances, hasn’t always been clean or aesthetically pleasing.
Torres knows this. His playing style comes across as casual, which obscures what Boone passionately defends as his “care factor.” He has made mistakes in attention and busyness. In long and often tense encounters over many years, Mendoza and Boone – often with Mendoza in the lead – rode Torres hard.
And Torres is deeply grateful for it. He indeed has a strong caring factor and has always wanted to grow and improve.
“He was always the man. When I did bad things, he was tough on me,” Torres says. “It was good. Maybe at that moment someone can tell you something you don’t like to hear. But that’s the best thing for a culture.”
This is not a simple story about a coach helping a player, and thereby sailing the player to victory. Torres is having a disappointing walk year, largely failing to make the case for the Yankees to keep him. But coaches with real impact help their players develop as people, not just as athletes.
“From the first day I joined the organization, Mendy helped me with everything,” Torres said.
“He helped me mature faster. He was the field coordinator. Then the first few years [in the big leagues]If I wasn’t running the bases or things like that, he would go straight to me. “Hey, you gotta do the little things. You have to be a professional. If you get angry because you fail in one at-bat, you must be a professional.’”
Contemporary coaching requires delicate management of egos and sensitivities. Tough love isn’t always the most effective strategy. But for Mendoza and Torres, that tone clicked.
“He doesn’t care who I am,” Torres said, meaning he was a top prospect and then an All-Star. “If he had the right answer for me, he would always come straight to me. And I love it. If I’m doing bad, just tell me. That’s the only way I can be better and do it for can solve later.”
As a Venezuelan, Torres is also aware of Mendoza’s broader significance as only the second person from that country to hold the position on a non-interim basis with an MLB team. Only Ozzie Guillen with the Chicago White Sox and Miami Marlins preceded him.
“Yes, it is extremely important that he is a big league manager,” Torres said. “I know he can be a great big league manager. I think he’s doing a great job with the Mets. I don’t care how the Mets play. I just know what he is like as a manager and as a person. I don’t think that players at the Mets have a problem with him because I know he’s a great person.”
Torres slams his fist into his glove, stands up and prepares to trot out to the field to do extra work. He’s still writing the story that Mendoza helped him start, hoping for an ending that’s better than the current chapter.
“I’m looking forward to seeing him and talking to him [on Tuesday at Citi Field]’, he says. “I’m so glad he got the job.”
