TWO PROSPECTS

Gauging progress of youngsters Torres & Rosario is tale of . . .

They were both hyped as can’tmiss prospects, Gleyber Torres and Amed Rosario, and in less than two weeks in the big leagues Torres is already making good on all the promise, wowing the Yankees with his feel for the game as well as his talent.

For Rosario, meanwhile, the breakthrough has been elusive, at least offensively, causing the Mets to wonder how long the learning curve will be for him. So what’s the difference? A scout who has seen both says Torres simply has a more advanced approach that can’t be taught.

“Pitch recognition is where it all starts for him,” one scout said. “He seems to pick up the spin very early, and that’s what tells you what the pitch is, gives him time to react. It allows him to be very quiet with his hands, very relaxed and patient.

“Rosario has a tougher time with that, and that’s why he swings at a lot of pitches out of the zone. That’s really the key for guys making the transition from the minors; if you don’t swing at strikes your talent may not translate at the highest level.

“Rosario has more time in the big leagues but Torres is more of a finished product.”

Perhaps that explains Torres’ strong start, as well as his ability to deliver in big moments already. His gametying, two-run single in the ninth inning against the Astros on Thursday was crucial to the comeback win, and after hitting his first home run on Friday night, he was hitting .333 with an .834 OPS.

Throw in some excellent defense at second base, and the 21-year-old has exceeded the high expectations Yankee people had for him.

“It’s amazing how easy he can make it look,” Tim Naehring, Yankees VP of Baseball Operations, said by phone on Friday. “He’s got that internal clock and the slow heartbeat that the special ones have, and we’ve seen it, but some of us were just kind of shaking our heads watching him in Houston, kind of like, ‘Really?’

“I think he’s been able to adapt quickly because he’s a tremendous student of the game. Our hitting coaches have been very impressed with his preparation, his ability to process and retain information about pitchers he’ll be facing.

“Even in the minors, the hitting coaches tell me a reliever will come in the game and Gleyber will make a subtle comment in the dugout about what the guy throws — look for this or look for that. He’s just advanced beyond his age.

“He has a calmness on both sides of the ball that you don’t see from a lot of young guys. Anytime you move a shortstop and put him at second base you’re in good shape as far as range and hands, but he plays with that clock in his head so that he never looks rushed. It’s fun to watch.”

So why hasn’t the transition been as easy for the 22-year-old Rosario? He blossomed offensively in the minors about the time he reached Double-A, hitting .324 with 42 extra-base hits in 120 games in Binghamton, and put up good numbers in hitter-friendly AAA Las Vegas as well.

But after hitting .248 in 46 games last season, Rosario as of Saturday was hitting .234 with six extra-base hits and a very poor .581 OPS.

His plate discipline remains the primary issue: as of Saturday he had drawn only four walks vs. 25 strikeouts, giving him a .273 onbase percentage.

During spring training, assistant GM J.P. Ricciardi said he thought Rosario “got away with his natural ability more in the minors, but obviously you have to make more adjustments in the big leagues.”

Ricciardi said then he was convinced the young shortstop would make more of those adjustments after getting a taste of big-league pitching last year, but so far Rosario hasn’t made significant progress.

The scout said it doesn’t mean Rosario won’t make that type of progress eventually.

“It just takes some guys longer — they need to see more big-league pitching,” the scout said. “Rosario has ability, you can see the life in his hands, and some pop in his bat.

“He’s just getting himself out too often, either swinging and missing at pitches out of the zone or making weak contact on pitches that might be strikes but they’re not good pitches to hit. He has to develop patience and he probably will, but not all of them do.

“I think he’ll hit enough that he’ll be a nice player, with his defense, but if you’re looking at the two players, Torres has some of those instincts at the plate and in the field that you can’t teach. He’s a much better bet to be an All-Star.”

HARVEY HISTORY

I’ve been hard on Matt Harvey in columns the last couple of days, writing that his entitled, selfish behavior over the years leaves little room for empathy now that the Mets are showing him the door. But I do think the one-time ace should always be commended for choosing not to follow the advice of Scott Boras in 2015, when his agent wanted to shut him down late in the season, a la Stephen Strasburg, in his first year back from Tommy John surgery.

He did so due to peer pressure, as his teammates were outraged when at first Harvey seemed ready to leave them hanging, but in any case, he put the team first and helped the Mets reach the World Series.

As for the infamous Game 5, Citi Field was never more electric as when Harvey was mowing down the Royals, and at the time I thought Terry Collins did the right thing, leaving him in to pitch the ninth.

The explosion of noise when Harvey came running out of the dugout was deafening, but when he walked Lorenzo Cain to lead off the inning, that’s when I thought Collins should have pulled him.

So I always wonder: what if Harvey had challenged Cain with a fastball on 3-and-2 instead of throwing that slider for Ball Four?

SPIN CITY

Could Gerrit Cole’s spectacular success with the Astros really be all about pine tar? Cole’s former UCLA teammate, Trevor Bauer, essentially claimed that to be the case on Twitter this week, implying that Cole’s significant increase in spin rate had to be due to using pine tar.

When challenged by Astros’ starter Lance McCullers, Bauer backpedaled a bit, saying he merely wants MLB to take a look at the issue league-wide.

In any case, Cole obviously was unfazed by such innuendo, going out on Friday night and throwing a complete-game, one-hitter against the hot-hitting Diamondbacks, while racking up 16 strikeouts.

In doing so Cole raised his MLBleading total to 77 strikeouts in 50 2/3 innings over six starts, to go with a 3-0 record and a 1.42 ERA.

Whatever the reason, that’s a huge increase in strikeouts over last year with the Pirates, as Cole continues to look like the steal of the offseason.

As for Bauer’s comments, I asked Mickey Callaway, who coached him in Cleveland, for a reaction. He shrugged and indicated that, as many baseball people acknowledge, it’s an open secret that a lot of pitchers use some type of substance, from sun screen to pine tar, to give themselves a better grip on the baseball.

He wouldn’t go into detail, but did say of the quirky Bauer: “He probably knows more about spin rate than anybody in baseball. He’s studied it.”

PEN LIGHT

The lasting image to come out of that scintillating Yankees-Astros series this week was surely Houston closer Ken Giles punching himself in the face on the way to the dugout after giving up a three-run home run to Gary Sanchez. Never mind that manager A.J. Hinch was the ultimate culprit, allowing Giles to pitch to the hot-hitting Sanchez with first base open. It was also a reminder the ’Stros won a championship last year in unusual fashion, with A.J. Hinch avoiding his closer in the World Series, instead using starter Charlie Morton out of the bullpen to lock down Game 7 against the Dodgers. That’s a tricky formula, however, and so you have to think the Astros will be in the market for a closer at the trade deadline this summer. As a scout said Friday, “No way they win it all again without improving their bullpen.”