6. Statcast: Gary Sanchez, C – New York Yankees (11.3 Brls/PA)
- AVG – .230 (133rd)
- OBP – .333 (81st)
- SLG – .539 (18th)
- HR – 12 (13th)
- RBI – 33 (23rd)
- wRC+ – 134 (36th)
- wOBA – .371 (35th)
- xwOBA – .411 (21st)
Gary Sanchez was always expected to hit. The big question with him as he came up through the New York Yankees farm system was whether he’d be able to stay behind the plate. Those questions are still being asked.
But Yankees fans can take solace in the fact that his bat is everything they could have hoped for. And probably more. He’s probably the biggest overachiever on this list, coming in no better than 13th in any one metric. But that could be an indication that he’s due for regression in a positive direction. Yeah, it’s possible he’s going to see even better results going forward. Sorry Red Sox fans.
He has hit mostly 5th in the lineup so far, which should provide him with plenty of RBI opportunities. Or, at least, it would in a normal lineup. Unfortunately for him (but fortunately for the Yankees) he’s hitting behind Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and Didi Gregorius. That strips him of runners on base more than we’d see in virtually any other lineup. It’s a tradeoff I’m sure most Yankees fans are happy to make.
It’s not all improvements, though…
The areas of concern with Gazy Sanchez are his AVG and OBP. Both are significantly lower than his previous two season totals. That could be due to his .228 BABIP which is due for positive regression.
It might also be a trade-off from increasing his launch angle to a career-high 15.8 degrees. That’s an increase of 2.6 degrees from last year and 7.9 from 2016. He’s trying to lift the ball more, and that’s going to bring up his swinging strike rate. Well, usually.
His 11.5% swinging strike rate is one percent lower than his 2017 total and 1.5% below where he finished 2016. That means the trade off is showing up somewhere else. In this case, it’s his line drive rate which dropped from 21.1% to 15.0%.
That means fewer balls hit hard in the 10-19 degree range, which is the second most productive in all of baseball. Fortunately for him, he ranks 11th in balls put into play between 19 and 26 degrees, which is the most productive range.