The Rise of Gary Sánchez
By Roberto Salvador Klapisch
It had been less than a week after Aaron Boone had been hired by the Yankees in November and already he was blowing up cell phones, sending get-to-know-you texts to the players as their new manager, new communicator, ushering in a new era in the Bronx.
Boone had won the job on the strength of his relationship-building skills. While he worked his way up and down the roster there was one message he sent with particular urgency.
It was to Gary Sánchez, the gifted but moody catcher who’d just come through a difficult year under Boone’s predecessor, Joe Girardi. The former manager had been openly critical of Sanchez’ defense in 2017, and some think that was a contributing factor in his dismissal. Ironically, other members of the organization were convinced of the opposite – that Girardi was responsible for Sánchez’ decline because he was too lenient.
Either way, Sánchez remains uncomfortable with such talk. He says, “I got along very well with Joe.” But there was a reason why Boone made a point of connecting with his catcher. Without asking what had previously gone wrong, Boone emphasized to Sánchez he was looking forward to better times in 2018.
“It was important for Gary to know that,” Boone said the other day. “I don’t want to say there was any special reason (for reaching out), other than he’s a young catcher and big part of what we’re trying to do here. Gary has tremendous skills, and I want him to be comfortable with me. People forget he’s a young player with a huge upside.”
Sánchez accepts the praise with characteristic modesty. It’s no exaggeration to say he’s the quietest and least affected player in the clubhouse, to the point of shyness. The fact that Boone considers him a vital cog pleases Sánchez, but he’s also quick to shift the focus to his teammates.
“We’re a family,” he said. “When you spend a long season together like you do in baseball, having good relationships is part of how a team is successful.”
The Yankees speak as one when they say Sánchez’ upside is indeed limitless. He hit 53 home runs in his first two seasons, including last season’s 33 in 471 at-bats. Every plate appearance, it seems, brings with it the possibility of a 400-foot blast over the wall.
But Girardi wasn’t entirely wrong, either, when he asked Sanchez to find an extra gear on defense. The catcher led the American League with 16 passed balls and appeared to be sabotaged by the very trait that made him so dangerous in the batter’s box: that fluidity that often left Sánchez a millisecond behind reacting to pitches in the dirt.
It’s not exactly a new criticism. Ever since he was drafted by the Yankees as a 17-year-old in 2009, Sánchez has been urged to be more focused on errant pitches, to anticipate better and to ultimately be more intuitive, especially on Masahiro Tanaka’s splitter and Sonny Gray’s curveball. Both pitches break late and sharply, causing problems not only for the batter but Sánchez, too.
Girardi finally ran out of patience in mid-season, tersely telling reporters, “(Sánchez) needs to improve, bottom line he needs to improve. He is late getting down, that’s what I see sometimes. It is something that we are working on and continue to work on.”
The Yankees would often put Sánchez through an intensive pre-game drill that required him to block high-speed pitches in the dirt from a mechanical arm. That would be followed by live pitches from a coach. The work was effective but taxing. As the summer wore on and the temperature rose, Sánchez balked. He found himself worn out before the first pitch.
Girardi relented, either out of frustration or a desire not to lose Sánchez altogether. The result was an increase in passed balls in the second half of the season.
Sánchez spent the winter at home in the Dominican Republic working diligently on those quick-fire reactions. While he says, “passed balls are part of the game, just like any mistakes you make” he came to camp thinking that the worst was behind him.
“I want to be better and I want to put in the work that will make me better every year,” he said.
The Yankees’ goal is to hone Sánchez’ skills to the point where he’s comfortable with Tanaka and Gray – Gray in particular – so that Boone won’t have to assign the lighter-hitting Austin Romine to be Gray’s personal receiver.
So far so good. Boone says, “I think his receiving has been excellent. I think Gary’s had a huge impact on the pitching staff so far. I think he’s done a great job.”
There’ve been no worries offensively, even though Sánchez was batting just .206 as of this week. But the 10 home runs in just the first 131 at-bats – including two walk-off homers in the ninth – only confirm what Boone and the Yankees have known all along: Sanchez is just as lethal a long ball threat as Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton.
When Sánchez says, “my goal is to keep improving” he says so with a smile. But he’s not kidding either. That’s the scary part.
Featured Image: Rich Schultz / Getty Images Sport