Luis Torrens

Luis Alfonso Torrens Saez

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 0", Weight 175 lb.

• Debut April 3, 2017

• Born May 2, 1996 in Valencia, Carabobo Venezuela

BR page

Biographical Information

Catcher Luis Torrens was signed by the New York Yankees before the 2013 season as a 17-year-old. He spent his first professional season with the GCL Yankees 2, hitting .241/.348/.299 in 47 games. In 2014, he was with three different teams, the GCL Yankees 1, the Staten Island Yankees and the Charleston RiverDogs, playing a total of 62 games. The bulk of his playing time came with Staten Island, in the New York-Penn League. His batting line was .256/.331/.383 with 3 homers and 22 RBIs.

Torrens then missed the entire 2015 season with a torn labrum, and then went back to Staten Island at the start of 2016. After 12 games, he was promoted back to Charleston, in the South Atlantic League, where he played another 40 games. In 52 games, he hit .250/.350/.337, with 2 homers and 15 RBIs. Given his slow progress to date, he was not added to the Yankees' 40-man roster after the 2016 season, making him available for the 2016 Rule V Draft. The San Diego Padres made a deal with the Cincinnati Reds, who were picking second, to take him and then send him over in a trade, part of the Padres' strategy to land all three top picks in the draft. The decision was a bit surprising given that Torrens was considered to be still quite far away from being able to play in the majors. However, he made the Padres' opening day roster in 2017, and like the other two top picks in the Rule V draft, Allen Cordoba and Miguel Diaz, he made his debut in the first game of the season against the Los Angeles Dodgers on April 3rd. The Padres were beaten badly, 14-3, giving a chance for all three youngsters to see some action late in the game; Luis caught a couple of innings and went 0 for 1 at the plate. He ended up playing 56 games for the Padres that season, hitting .163 with no homers and 7 RBIs.

As had been the plan all along, Torrens resumed his minor league apprenticeship in 2018, this time in the Padres' system. He was assigned to the Class A California League where he was the starting backstop for the Lake Elsinore Storm and hit .280/.320/.406 in 122 games, with 36 doubles. In 2019 he moved up to the Amarillo Sod Poodles of the AA Texas League and played 97 games, hitting .300/.373/.500, with 23 doubles and 15 homers. This time, his appearance at the major league level as a September call-up was legitimate, and he hit .214 in 7 games. He would normally have started 2020 in AAA, but with the minor leagues shut down due to the Coronavirus pandemic, he was instead assigned to the Padres alternate training site at the start of the delayed season. On August 17th, with the Padres getting almost no production on offense from their two catchers, Austin Hedges and Francisco Mejia, he was added to the big league club. He went 3 for 11 in his first 7 games then on August 30th was traded to the Seattle Mariners as part of a seven-player deal. Accompanying him were IF Ty France, P Andres Munoz and OF Taylor Trammell, in return for C Austin Nola and Ps Austin Adams and Dan Altavilla. He hit .254 in 18 games for the Mariners.

In 2021, he played 108 games for Seattle, sharing catching duties with veteran Tom Murphy, but also ending up as the team's most-used DH with 56 starts at the position, against 35 at catcher. He batted .243 with 16 doubles, 15 homers and 47 RBIs, giving him an OPS+ of 102, one of the highest on a team that had a very good record in spite of an offense that struggled to score runs. In 2022, he was seeing more time behind the plate in the early going, but was again sharing time with another backstop, in this case rookie Cal Raleigh, as his power seemed to have vanished in the haze: through 36 games, he had only 2 extra-base hits in 108 at-bats, both of them doubles. On June 26th, he injured his shoulder in the major bench-clearing brawl that took place in a game against the California Angels and had to go on the injured list; he ended up at the bottom of the pile of players and suffered various bruises as a result. On October 4th, he became one of the few position players to have earned a win when, in the first game of a doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers, he was asked by manager Scott Servais to pitch the top of the 10th inning in a 5-5 tie the Mariners had already used four pitchers, had another game to play that day, and there was nothing much at stake since they had clinched a postseason slot a few days earlier. He allowed the ghost runner to score on a pair of fly balls, but Seattle came back to score twice in the bottom of the inning and he received credit for the 7-6 win. He then started the second game at catcher and went 1 for 3 with a walk in a 9-6 win.

Further Reading

• Daniel Kramer: "Catcher Torrens takes mound, makes history: Keeping 'pen fresh, backstop 1st Mariners position player to earn pitching win", mlb.com, October 5, 2022. [1]

Related Sites

• Luis Torrens on mlb.com
• BR Minors page