2017 MLB Draft Guide Player Profile: Gary Sanchez

Gary Sanchez

Age: 24 years old

Bats/Throws: R/R

Height/Weight: 6’3”/235 lbs

Position: Catcher

THE NUMBERS

A star prospect for years has been Sanchez. Here are his overall prospect rankings from the big-3 heading in to each season.

What happened in 2015? Sanchez didn’t impress in 2014, leading many to drop him substantially in their rankings before he rebounded. Speaking of his work in the minors, let’s look into the numbers a bit.

As a minor-leaguer, Sanchez hit .275 with a .339 OBP and .460 SLG. Not one of those numbers stands out.

As a minor-leaguer, Sanchez hit 99 homers in 636 games. That pace, over 500 at-bats, would lead to 20 homers.

Note that Sanchez never hit 20 homers in a minor-league season.

As a minor-leaguer, Sanchez had a 0.40 BB/K ratio. That’s a nearly exact match to the major-league average.

Sanchez was always thought of highly by talent evaluators, but the performance with the bat didn’t exactly impress.

THE SKILLS
 

THE POWER

Let’s start out with the homer.

Gary Sanchez had a 40.0 percent HR/FB ratio. That’s impossible. It is NOT possible to post a mark that high. OK, he did it last year, but really there is less than a zero percent chance he replicates that mark in any season of his career. The data.

No full-time player in baseball had a HR/FB ratio of 29 percent in 2016. In fact, there are rarely folks reaching thirty percent. Here are the league leaders the last 10-years.

As you can tell, folks don’t even reach 30 percent... and Sanchez was at 40.0 percent last season. It’s impossible for him to replicate that number. There’s about a three percent chance that he posts a mark of 30 percent. I’d put the odds of him reaching 25 percent at about 10 percent. Folks, the number is going to plummet in 2017. With it, his homer pace will fall and fall and fall. You can’t do what he did last season unless you’re Barry Bonds. Wait, not true. Even Bonds couldn’t match what nary a single season in his career with a HR/FB ratio of 30 percent.

Let’s talk the fly ball.

Sanchez had a fly ball rate of 34.2 percent last season. That’s a league average number. It’s pretty hard to be a massive homer bat if you’re only hitting a league average number of fly balls. Not impossible of course, but challenging. Also, keep an eye on that ground ball rate of 49.3 percent that Sanchez posted last season. You don’t often hit 30 homers with a mark like that.

Let’s talk Isolated Power. From the MLB Sabermetric Primer: Isolated Power (Slugging % - Batting Average) is a sabermetric measure which attempts to describe a hitters overall effectiveness by measuring the players ability to generate extra base hits. How did Sanchez do last season?

In 2016 Sanchez had a mark of .358.
The league leader was David Ortiz at .305 (min 502 PAs).
Since 2005 no player in baseball has posted a mark of .358.
As a minor leaguer Sanchez had a mark of .185.

It’s pretty clear he was out of control, yet again, in this measure. And that’s a real issue here. What level of success can Sanchez sustain when we all, well all Fantasy Alarm subscribers at least, understand that there will be a pullback? It’s pretty clear, at least to me, that Sanchez isn’t the greatest slugger in baseball history. It’s also pretty clear that what he did last season is unsustainable, not just because of history, but because of who he was in the minors. He’s just not this guy.

THE AVERAGE

As for the .299 batting average, there are serious questions there. Let’s start with a positive. Sanchez posted a 0.42 BB/K ratio last season. That was a nearly direct match for his 0.40 career mark. Righty there. That’s good to see of course. See, I can say something nice about Sanchez. However...

Sanchez hit .275 in the minors. The last time he hit .299 in the minors was in 2010. He’s not a big-time average kinda guy, yet he hit .299 last year. Why? Part of it was the homer of course. Take away five homers, giving him a still astounding 15 homers in 201 at-bats, and Sanchez would have hit .274. Just like that, with the normalization that will occur moving forward, we’ve dropped Sanchez to being the hitter he’s always been in the batting average category.

Sanchez pulled 54.1 percent of his batted balls last season. That’s great for the power categories. That’s not so good for the ole batting average category. In fact, the only player in baseball who qualified for the batting average title who had a mark that high last season was Brian Dozier (56.4 percent). Guys don’t pull the ball as much as Sanchez did. It’s just not a winning formula long-term. Pitchers will pick you apart if all you do is pull the ball.

Sanchez had a 16.4 percent line drive rate. That’s an awful mark. There were only three men in baseball, who qualified for the batting title, who were worse than that last season: Todd Frazier (15.7), Dozier (15.9) and Carlos Santana (16.0).

There are danger signs at every turn if you believe that Sanchez is going to push .300 again.

A FINAL CONCERN

One final note, something that his GM addressed but so many in fantasy are seemingly looking past. “There could be an adjustment as the league gets to know him better now and maybe find (better) ways to pitch to him, and he’ll adjust back,” GM Brian Cashman said. “He’s extremely bright, one of the better intellectual young hitters that our staff has come across and that’ll serve him well as he navigates how people approach him as we move forward. They’re clearly going to be careful because everybody knows exactly how good he was, and therefore they’re going to be very cautious.”

Finally, some audio about why you should be cautious with Sanchez.

CONCLUSION

With questions about his dedication and work ethic seemingly behind him, folks are looking at the Yankees’ backstop like he’s a legitimate star. Sanchez isn’t going to hit 60 homers. He won’t hit 50. He won’t hit 40. The real question we have to ask ourselves is if he can hit 30? Anything can happen in baseball. Still, I have a hard time delving into all the data and coming to the conclusion that he’s a good option to reach that mark. He was so out of control good last year that people are using him as a building block behind the dish. That’s just foolish to me. Utterly nuts actually. Sanchez isn’t going to steal bases. He would be lucky to hit .275. He’s really not much different than the Matt Wieters, Russell Martin and Yasmani Grandal’s of the world. Even if you think that’s wrong, I just cannot fathom why you would think it a win to select Sanchez 100 or more selections ahead of those others. Seems ludicrous to me.

10/12/15-Team Mixed: I combined the three league sizes because I’m going to say the same for all three; Sanchez is a starter in all, zero question. No argument from this guy. Same time, as you’ve seen above, I’m simply not willing to pay the price that it will require to gain his services in 2017. Neither should you be.

AL-Only League: There will be plenty of leagues where he’s the top AL backstop of the board, (either he or Jonathan Lucroy). Not going to argue he’s not a top-5 AL backstop. It’s simply up to you if you want to pay the exorbitant price to add his services.

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Ray Flowers can be heard Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday, 8 PM EDT, Wednesday 7 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray on the channel Sunday nights at 9 PM EDT PM. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).