Cashman: Nearly impossible for Sanchez to repeat 2016 performance
As Gary Sanchez gears up for his first full season in the big leagues - he's even skipping the World Baseball Classic to focus on the upcoming campaign - New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said he's keeping his expectations for the 24-year-old phenom reasonable.
It would be crazy, Cashman suggested, to think Sanchez could repeat his performance from 2016, when the rookie catcher smacked 20 homers and put up a 1.032 OPS in 53 games with the Yankees after being called up from Triple-A in August.
"I don't know if you can repeat that type of year," Cashman told ESPN's Andrew Marchand. "That kind of is impossible.”
Though banking on that level of productivity from the American League Rookie of the Year runner-up is unfair - Sanchez became the fastest player in history to reach 20 home runs, needing just 50 games to reach the plateau - projection systems are bullish about his 2017 campaign.
| System | WAR | OPS | HR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steamer | 3.9 | .820 | 27 |
| PECOTA | 3.9 | .803 | 31 |
Such a performance would easily cement Sanchez's status among the game's elite backstops. In 2016, the only catchers to accrue more than 3.5 WAR were two-time All-Star Jonathan Lucroy and Buster Posey, the longtime San Francisco Giants star who won the National League Rookie of the Year award in 2010 and was named his league's Most Valuable Player two seasons later. If Sanchez can put up the 3.9 WAR he's projected for by both the Steamer and PECOTA systems, he would also enjoy the most productive season by a Yankees catcher since 2007, when Jorge Posada hit .338/.426/.543 (157 wRC+) and finished sixth in AL MVP voting.
As the hype continues to build, though, Cashman knows not to let his imagination run wild.
"I've been around the game long enough to know that you can never count on anything," he said.