Projecting Yankees Catching Prospect Gary Sanchez

Now that the minor league regular seasons have come to a close, and we’ve reached the ides of September, most of the noteworthy roster-expansion call-ups are behind us. Nearly all of the players who were expected to have substantial impacts on the pennant races came up on the first of the month or shortly thereafter. However, a few more prospects were promoted over the weekend, as minor league clubs were eliminated from their respective playoffs. The most notable of the rookies called up over the weekend was probably Gary Sanchez, a catcher in the Yankees organization.

Sanchez has been on the prospect radar for a few years now, ever since the Yankees gave him a big bonus to sign out of the Dominican as a 16-year-old back in 2009. Sanchez hit an excellent .286/.350/.496 (134 wRC+) over his first three seasons in the minors, but followed it up with a less impressive .261/.329/.405 (107 wRC+) between High-A and Double-A in 2013 and 2014. The primary culprit for the change was a drop-off in power, which manifested itself in substantially lower isolated power figures. However, Sanchez’s pop made a comeback in 2015, during which he split time between the Double-A and Triple-A.

Overall, Sanchez hit .271/.329/.476 (131 wRC+) in the minors this year. He doesn’t walk a ton (7% walk rate), but also doesn’t strikeout all that much either (20% strikeout rate), especially for a guy who hits for a good amount of power. This confluence of skills was enough to get some love from KATOH. My system pegs him for 4.8 WAR through age 28, which makes him the 66th-highest-ranked prospect in baseball. This was a stark improvement over his 2014 forecast of 3.1 WAR. It’s also worth noting that these figures likely underrate Sanchez’s true potential, as the current KATOH model doesn’t directly account for a player’s defensive position, which conspires to underrate catchers. This flaw will be addressed with the next KATOH update, which I will start using this offseason.

Everyone loves a comp, so let’s go ahead and generate a few for Sanchez. Using Sanchez’s league-adjusted stats and his age, I calculated the Mahalanobis distance between Sanchez’s 2015 season, and every Double-A  and Triple-A season since 1990 in which a player recorded at least 400 plate appearances. Below, you’ll find a list of historical players whose performances were nearest and dearest to Sanchez’s, ranked from most to least similar.

Since the offensive requirements for big league catchers are vastly different than those for other positions, below is a second table which features only those players who made the majority of their starts at catcher.

Sanchez’s bat is intriguing, but it’s his defensive potential that could be the real difference-maker for him. The offensive bar for catchers is laughably low, so Sanchez could wind up being mighty valuable if he’s able to play the position adequately in the long term. Sanchez’s defense has always been a question mark, however, largely due to scouts’ concerns about his makeup. As Kiley McDaniel noted in the preseason, Sanchez has the raw tools to catch, including a 70-grade arm, but has historically shown little interest in improving his defense.

On the bright side, Kiley informed me that Sanchez’s attitude, defense and consistency have all been better this year, meaning he should be able to stick at the position, at least. But some scouts are still wary of Sanchez, given his long and frustrating track record of inconsistency. Kiley grades him as a 45+ or 50 FV now, which would make him roughly an average regular at his peak.

After cracking just about every top-100 list from 2011 to 2014, Sanchez’s prospect cachet has faded these past couple of years. He seemed to right the ship in 2015, but he doesn’t have nearly the buzz he did three or four years ago. Still, although his prospect trajectory has been all over the map, it’s easy to forget that he’s still just 22. If he were an American-born prospect, he would have been drafted out of high school in 2011, or out of college as recently as 15 months ago.

With Brian McCann and John Ryan Murphy in tow, Sanchez doesn’t figure to have much of a role with the Yankees these next couple of weeks. Barring a trade, the same may be true next season, as well. But everything about Sanchez’s minor league performance suggests his bat is ready for the big leagues, even if he still has a little more to prove defensively. And in time, he stands a good chance of growing into an everyday player.