New York Yankees: What to do with Gary Sanchez

The New York Yankees will have to make a decision this offseason when it comes to Gary Sanchez.

To call the 2020 season a disaster for Gary Sanchez would be an understatement. The New York Yankees catcher had not only struggled during the course of the season, but had been deposed as the starter by Kyle Higashioka during the playoffs. Sanchez had just nine plate appearances in the postseason, and while he hit a home run, did nothing else to change his place upon the Yankees bench.

It was hard to argue with that stance based on his production during the regular season. In his 178 plate appearances, Sanchez produced a woeful .147/.253/.367 batting line. While he did hit ten homers, those shots accounted for just over 43% of his hits on the year.

That performance puts the Yankees in a difficult position this offseason. Sanchez is heading into arbitration once again after making $5 million in 2020. He is also under team control through 2023. But do the Yankees really want to spend that much on a catcher whose bat was unable to offset his mediocre pitch framing and defense?

A deeper look into Sanchez’s batted ball profile in 2020 shows that he was essentially the same player he has always been. He had a 91.6 MPH exit velocity, right in line with his career average of 91.1 MPH. His 17.4% barrel rate was amongst the best in the game, ranking in the 97th percentile, and his 49.5% hard hit rate was in the 91st percentile.

Likewise, his batted ball profile was solid. While Sanchez had a 38% ground ball rate, an increase of 5.6% over last year, he also improved his line drive rate by 4.4%. The problem was that, for all of those strides with the batted ball, he had a meager .159 batting average on balls in play, 97 points below his career mark.

Another red flag was Sanchez’s strikeout rate. He was seemingly more passive in the batter’s box, refusing to offer at anything that was not in his specific zone. Sanchez did improve his walk rate to 10.1%, but his strikeout rate also increased to a career worst 36.0%. He swung at just 43.7% of any pitches he faced, and almost never swung at the first pitch, doing so only 21.3% of the time.

In theory, Sanchez should be easy to fix. He needs to be more aggressive at the plate in order to tap into his innate ability to hit the ball hard. Sanchez seems primed to have a bounceback year in 2021, provided the Yankees bring him back.

But first the Yankees need to determine if they will bring him back next year. Higashioka is not the answer; he is a 30 year old backup catcher with a grand total of 204 major league plate appearances. There are several options available in free agency, but excluding the obvious prize that is J.T. Realmuto, Sanchez may still be a better choice.

The New York Yankees have a decision to make on Gary Sanchez. A deeper dive into his season makes it an easier decision than it would have seemed.