The Yankees will place catcher Gary Sanchez on the 10-day disabled list with a right biceps strain, Jack Curry of the YES Network was among those to report (Twitter link). Sanchez suffered the injury during the Yankees’ 5-4 loss to Baltimore on Saturday. He’ll see a doctor Monday or Tuesday, per Marly Rivera of ESPN.com.
New York has gotten off to a sluggish start even with the heralded Sanchez in its lineup, having dropped four of five to begin the season. Sanchez hit just .150/.190/.300 with a home run, four strikeouts and a walk during those five games, but the 24-year-old figures to rebound when he returns to action.
Sanchez slashed .299/.376/.657 with 20 homers in 299 plate appearances as a rookie last season, and while he won’t be able to replicate those numbers over a full campaign, he could nonetheless firmly establish himself as an elite catcher as early as this year. Further adding to Sanchez’s appeal is the fact that he cut down a whopping 41 percent of would-be base stealers in 2016. Given that the injury is to his impressive throwing arm, the Yankees will be extra careful with his recovery, according to manager Joe Girardi (via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com, on Twitter).
With Sanchez out of action, the Yankees will try to escape their early season swoon using the uninspiring combination of Austin Romine and Kyle Higashioka behind the plate. Romine has batted an ugly .222/.256/.329 in 359 major league PAs, while the 26-year-old Higashioka hasn’t yet debuted in the bigs. He’ll join the Yankees on Sunday, tweets Hoch.
“Well it’s not what you want” – Joe Girardi
(For those who don’t get it, he’s basically said this after every loss, injury, etc)
They’ll miss his,1-14 start at the plate.
I am an Orioles fan and I respect the guy. Hes gonna be good
Yea those are the kind of totals to base a whole season on!
Lmao. Yeah just like the Nats will miss Turner’s 2-18 or the Cubs will miss Bryant’s 1-19 if they got injured.
Congrats, you got the joke.
A very poor one if it was.
Well going back to end of last August, Gary Johnny Bench Sanchez has hit .205/.287/.489 with a 93 wRC+. His offense hasn’t been around for a lot longer than those last 14 or so at bats.
I’m not exactly sure how “end of last August” is defined, but from September 1st of last year through today’s exact date as of this post (4/8), he actually has a wRC+ of 117. which ranks 4th in all of baseball among qualified Catchers. That wRC+ of 117 ranks far ahead of Xander “Honus Wagner” Bogaerts wRC+ of 99.
link to fangraphs.com
Was a little off on the exact numbers, but wasn’t too far off. That is 33-35 games. Far bigger sample of him being a mediocre player than him being the megastud player he was for 20 or so games in the summer.
Ahhh. I see the problem. You’re link has every one of his AB (which is at Catcher and DH, a much better sample I will credit you for) whereas the one I had listed Catchers only, which I assume excluded his games in September where he was a DH.
He surely won’t be the same “mega stud” player he was last season, but the Yankees are still counting on him to be a well-above-average catcher. I fully expect him to be a top-5, or worst case, a top-10 catcher on a yearly basis (assuming he stays healthy), but by no means do I think he’s on the same level as guys like Posey or Lucroy yet, especially because of the fact that he’s largely unproven in terms of how well he will be able to sustain his success. Either way, losing him for any period of time hurts the Yankees.
Man I drafted him smh of course this would happend, also Nelson Cruz smh I’m a jinx
And there goes half the USA’s MVP prediction for the AL
I’m pretty sure he’s making a joke. There’s no way the MVP race will be Trout and Sanchez. Maybe Trout and Miggy or Trout and Betts once again.
Completely agree redsfan48
Last time I checked, Mike Trout was still in the AL. If half the USA predicted Sanchez would win the AL MVP, this country is a lot dumber than I thought.
After November, are you really surprised?
Ditto
Yeah, I can’t believe people are dumb enough to vote for Hillary.
The Yankees could really use a guy like Brian McCann right now.
That’s the trouble with young catchers. You never know if they have what it takes to stick the ball. I mean stick around,
writing that sanchez won’t be able to replicate those numbers is like saying you’ll never write an article as good as this one. sarcasm noted.