Let’s Talk About Gary Sanchez
And that "tag"....
By the end of this, I will explain why I love Gary Sanchez, I swear. But in Friday’s Subway Series game, he made one of the worst plays you will ever see a catcher make. With runners on first and second and two outs, Javy Baez singled to left. Even though Joey Gallo got to the ball quickly and has a good arm, the third base coach decided to send Jonathan Villar home… and Gallo’s throw beat him there by about 45 minutes.
In fact, the throw beat him by so much that Villar started to pull up before he reached plate. Then Gary, seeming to panic or momentarily forget the rules of baseball, raised his glove up, in an apparent effort to reach out and tag Villar. But in doing so he created a perfect opening for Villar to slide under the tag and score.
The play was so shocking that the umpire originally called Villar out, claiming that Sanchez tagged Villar’s helmet, likely assuming there was no way Sanchez could have screwed up that much. But a replay review overturned the call.
The Yankees lost the game 10-3, so it’s not like that play affected the outcome all that much. But in a poorly played game that extended a losing streak to seven games, Sanchez’s play became a flashpoint, a symbol of a team falling apart.
This is par for the course for Sanchez. Ever since he was first called up, in 2016, and played like Babe Ruth for two months—hitting 20 home runs in 53 games—Sanchez has attracted outsized attention from the fans. In 2017, he was an All-Star who got MVP consideration, but his league-leading 16 passed balls were a topic of conversation all year, and seem to have led to the team switching managers. Joe Girardi was simultaneously too hard and too easy on Sanchez, depending on who you asked.
But when they brought in Aaron Boone, Sanchez got even worse. In 2018, he had 18 passed balls in only 89 games, and his offense disappeared. It seems he was playing through an injury, but the criticisms of him intensified. In 2019, he rebounded, hitting home runs again and getting the passed balls under control. But that seems to have come at the expense of pitch-framing, which was bad that year. The team tweaked his stance to improve his framing, but then the passed balls came back. In 2020, his offense was so bad that late in the year he was splitting time with Kyle Higashioka, both because Higashioka was hot and because Gerrit Cole preferred pitching to him. By the Division Series, Higashioka started four of five games.
Sanchez’s hitting has bounced back this year, but it’s just always something with him. And what makes this so frustrating is that Sanchez has never really reached the potential he showed in that 2016 season. His production over the last five years has been… fine. His career OPS+ is 119, which is pretty good for a catcher but nothing great. He now hits near the bottom of the lineup, but he’s a scary bat to have in the bottom third. Alarmists will tell you that he is the worst catcher in the league, and at times, like that non-tag on Villar, he certainly looks like it. But the numbers suggest he is not as bad as he looks: He has a great arm and can be a decent pitch-framer.
If you look at other teams competing for a playoff spot, Sanchez isn’t the worst (that would be Martin Maldonado in Houston) and his WAR this year is on par with Christian Vazquez in Boston and Travis d’Arnaud in Atlanta. But he doesn’t get there the way those guys do. While other mediocre catchers get there with solid defense and passable offense, Sanchez has wild swings between amazing and terrible. There are times when he looks like the most natural hitter in the world, and hits majestic home runs—and there are times when he looks utterly lost at the plate. There are times when he makes amazing throws from behind the plate, and times when he doesn’t remember how to apply a tag.
Of course, Sanchez isn’t the first streaky player in baseball, but the frustrating thing about Sanchez is that the pluses only barely outweigh the minuses. The emotional lows that Sanchez subjects a fanbase to hardly seem worth it for a player only slightly better than James McCann. But what alternative do the Yankees have? Catchers like JT Realmuto don’t grow on trees; McCann got $40 million last offseason. Sanchez is the best of bad options.
So why do I like him so much? I have a soft spot for any player that Yankee fans hate irrationally (I loved A-Rod for similar reasons). My instinct is to figure out why they are wrong. I used to think the Sanchez hate was primarily racial: Sanchez is Dominican, and the labels he gets tagged with—“lazy,” “dumb,” etc.—seem to fit with ethnic stereotypes of people from the Dominican Republic. It’s rare for the fans or the media to be explicit about this, but clearly these assumptions affect the way we perceive and talk about athletes.
But I no longer think this is the most relevant thing about rooting for Sanchez. I think what drives people crazy about rooting for him is the tantalizing potential he continues to show. If he could just be the kind of consistent, low-ceiling guy teams often put at catcher, fans would take that, even if his overall production was worse. It’s the constant glimpses of the hitter he was in 2016, the fits and starts of defensive improvement that quickly evaporate, the idea that there is an elite player lurking inside of him, waiting to pop out… It only makes it more frustrating when he’s just OK. A lot of fans try to convince themselves that Sanchez is a total bust, because in some ways that would be easier than the constant mood swings that end in mediocrity.
Me, I will continue to love Gary. In an era of players bred to maximize efficiency no matter how boring it makes the game, he is endearingly human and always interesting. But more importantly, I will continue to remember those amazing two months he played in 2016, and hope, against all odds, to see that player again.
Cant wait to tweet this article mockingly at the 2022 AL MVP trophy presentation...