Yesterday's game looked good. I saw a lot of things that I liked, especially after being humiliated by the Phillies previously. Sanchez was productive both behind the plate and in the box and I want to see him continue to be. I am in his corner, but the Yankees seem to think this is what we can expect going forward the entire season.
I need to see a longer track record before I am convinced but I am happy that Yankees catching coach Tanner Swanson is a big believer, he had a lot of good things to say during the game yesterday, in case you didn't see it you can read about it HERE.
"He has really invested himself in what we’re doing," said Swanson, who has been working with Sánchez since January. "He has refined his process. Has put in a lot of quality work in. I think we’re seeing that transfer into the game. When we broke camp year last year, and really when we got disrupted with the pandemic and had to come back, we kind of had a foundation laid but weren’t really able to expand much beyond that. I think this year with the work he's done this offseason we've been really able to open the playbook."
I'm sure the pause last year between spring training and summer camp disrupted his routine and didn't help but he had problems before that. He's had problems framing pitches, blocking balls and has hit below the Mendoza line long before Covid-19 came around. I don't think last season is the only reason to be skeptical.
I do have hope that his time in the Dominican League over the winter helped. I hope there is a resurgence to the 2017 Sanchez that a lot of people are buzzing about. I think we all need to see more first....but I will be ecstatic to eat my words later if 2021 is a career year for him.
I do have hope that his time in the Dominican League over the winter helped. I hope there is a resurgence to the 2017 Sanchez that a lot of people are buzzing about. I think we all need to see more first....but I will be ecstatic to eat my words later if 2021 is a career year for him.
Very fair question to ask Jeana & thank you for not dragging the article under water with a whole exit velocity fangraphs bunch of malarkey that tries to analyze
ReplyDeletelimited springg training AB's to date. Your work is always so readable and I really appreciate that!
It's safe to say the Yankees like what they see so far & as we all know spring training means didley. The first month of the season is also a small sample size but at least it counts.
If Sanchez is looking good after a month that'll be a positive that we can contemplate. Still, he needs to be looking acceptable at the All-Star break and if he's not - that's a whole separate conversation.
Now is the time to be positive with Sanchez. Chirinos maybe able to mentor him a little bit this spring and that could really help but Gary needs to continue to work on his body and he needs to put in the physical conditioning & ultimately perform.
I keep going back to Sanchez publicly stating that he had no idea why Boone benched him in the playoffs. I'm still convinced part of his issues are mental but we can't deny his inability to hit fastballs and there's been a good deal written up to this point about how he recognized that and then that prompted him to start working on his body more.
He's a bat first catcher & this spring he gets a clean slate - an opportunity the likes of which he won't see again with the Yankees unless he can do something with it.