Gary Sanchez is easy to forget about. He’s been in the
Yankees organization since he was 16. He’s been rated in Baseball America’s Top
100 since 2011. He’s in his second full season at AA, yet he’s just 22, nearly
four years younger than the average age of guys he’s playing against (according
to Baseball Reference).
When a guy has just been consistently good, as well as
around for a long time, he gets overshadowed by shiny new toys. Players like Aaron
Judge and Luis Severino have injected much-needed life into the farm system, but Sanchez is
still one of the crown jewels.
He’s a righty-hitting catcher with power, and his defense has become a
strong point, notably his arm. I think people are weary of getting too hyped
about him because of Jesus Montero, but he’s a better defender than that. His
bat is good as well, as he should be a solid middle of the order guy in his
prime. He hit 13 HRs as a 21-year-old in AA last year, after hitting 15 in 2013
and 18 in 2012. He’s off to a slow start this year, but I expect him to heat up
as the season goes on.
So while Yankee fans are excited over Judge and Severino and
Lindgren and Bird and Refsnyder, I, for one, am anxiously awaiting Gary Sanchez’s
arrival, likely sometime next year or maybe even this September. It’s been a
long time coming. There's no need to rush him, and I hope that he and John Ryan Murphy form a solid 1-2 catching combo in the next few years.
People are weary of getting hyped about Gary because there's this other guy in the Yankees org named Luis Torrens. ;)
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness I like Slamchez too. Unfortunately he's been labelled a guy with "attitude issues" which I take with a grain of salt since there might've just been some things lost in translation, as there usually is. And that's the kind of crap that lazy writers repeat for the sake of creating a bogus narrative.
Sorry I went off on a tangent there. Hopefully people will come to appreciate Gary again when the Yankees have a catcher who can actually hit again when he comes up.
I always take the attitude thing with a grain of salt. I get it, it happens, but when a guy is 19 years old or something and gets dinged on that, I never care too much unless it sppears to be a massive trend. He might just need to learn a lesson or get a wake up call.
DeleteI haven't heard anything about it since it first happened what, 2 or 3 years ago? Unfortunately, it's probably a hard label to shake.