What Happened to Gary Sánchez?
Gary Sánchez has gone from must-watch to agonizing over the last two seasons, but how did we get to this point?
Gary Sánchez came out of the gates guns blazing in 2016 after his late-summer call-up in August for good. He hit .299/.376/.657 with 20 HR and a 170 wRC+ in 53 games. However, he was bound to come down from that with a 37-point difference between his wOBA (.425) and his xwOBA (.388).
2017 was good for Sánchez, as well, as he hit 33 HR with a 131 wRC+ in 122 games as the Baby Bombers officially introduced themselves to the world. 2018 was a very injury-riddled season, but over his first four seasons as a big league backstop (nobody cares about his 2 PA in 2015), he posted a 123 wRC+, which led all catchers with at least 1000 PA in that span.
However, the last two seasons have been a different story for Sánchez than his previous three seasons (I didn’t include 2016 since it was an obvious fluke). He’s seen his SLG dip almost 100 points, his OPS dip over 100 points, his wRC+ dip over 20 points, and all of his expected stats have also taken a toll.
Yes, I know 2020-2021 is a much smaller sample size than 2017-19, but there are clear issues with his offense that need to be addressed. And this is not even including his obvious shortcomings behind the plate.
Firstly, the man has completely lost his ability to demolish fastballs (4-seam fastballs, 2-seam fastballs, and sinkers). Over the last two seasons, he’s seen a slight rise in fastballs thrown to him, compared to 2017-2019, but his production against fastballs in the process has completely taken a turn for the worse.
In 2017-2019, Sánchez had a .910 OPS against fastballs. Over the last two seasons, he’s posted just a .739 OPS against fastballs. The MLB average OPS against fastballs since the start of 2017 is .817.
You can see the clear drop here in his numbers against fastballs, but what is truly alarming about his numbers against fastballs are his his expected stats (xwOBA, sure, but his xwOBAcon over all of it), his average exit velocity, and average launch angle.
When he’s putting the ball in play, he’s just not even giving himself a chance against fastballs. There’s a dramatic decrease in average exit velocity (93.9 MPH to 90.5 MPH) while there’s an increase in launch angle.
I want to say this first before the “launch angle is bad” crowd voices their opinions. Every batted ball has a launch angle, that’s just how the world works. A ball hit straight into the ground will have a negative launch angle and a ball popped up will have a pretty extreme launch angle. You can fill in the rest.
Going back to Sánchez, these fastball numbers got me thinking: Is this an overall issue with him? Well, not entirely. His 2017-2019 average exit velocity and average launch angle aren’t too different from his 2020-2021 outputs, but there still is a tiny drop/increase in both.
Again, I ask: What's exactly going on here? Well, I think there might be a mechanical issue with Gary Sánchez that I’m hoping new Yankees’ hitting coach Dillon Lawson, also known as “The LawDog,” can help with.
Let’s take a look at how Sánchez’ numbers on fly balls and pop-ups have changed over the last few seasons. (I’m taking out line drives to prove a point here, and there’s not enough of a difference in his line-drive rate for me to think there’s an issue there.)
This is incredibly alarming as a Yankee fan. A huge drop in xwOBA on fly balls and pop-ups, more than a 3-MPH drop in average exit velocity, while there’s still, as has been the theme of this piece, an increase in launch angle.
When he’s hitting the ball up in the air, he’s doing nothing with the baseball. That begs the question: For someone who still had a max exit velocity in the top 1% during the shortened 2020 season, what’s going on here?
Did COVID-19 screw him up? Sure, it probably played a part in his continued slump after the positive test, but I think there’s something mechanical here.
I think there may be a swing path issue that’s causing him to see a dip in his average exit velocity numbers. I’d have to dive deeper into all of his swings (I don’t have time for that, honestly, but someone else can), but it just screams that. I have to stress the obvious that I’m not a professional hitting coach — I’m just Twitter User Captain Rougie trying to use the resources in front of me to see the big picture.
As I’ve always preached, if you hit the baseball hard and in the air, good things more likely than not happen. That’s how things were for Gary Sánchez for his first couple seasons. He’s actually hitting ground balls at a lower rate and fly balls at a higher rate over the last two seasons on average than ever before. However, when you can’t crack 90 MPH on your fly balls/pop-ups, we have to get back in the lab and figure things out.
Look at this beauty from 2019… I miss this version of Gary Sánchez. I don’t know personally how fixable this guy is, but it’ll be interesting to see if the Yankees can find a way to crack the code in 2021 — in what will likely be his final season in pinstripes.
This “finding” could very be nothing. We could all be right in thinking that Gary Sánchez is a lost cause. I’ve admittedly given up a ton on him and turned my efforts to Kyle Higashioka propaganda, but Gary Sánchez is still a member of the New York Yankees as of December 6th, 2021, so I still obviously hope for the best.
He is never going to be the 2016-17 version of him, but him being a 115-120 wRC+ would be gravy. Do I believe he’s going to get to those marks? Can’t say that I do. Will I be happy if I’m wrong? Of course, and I’ll be the first one to jump back on the Gary Sánchez (Resurgence) Bandwagon.
We currently don’t know how much help the Dillon Lawson can be to Gary Sánchez right now with the obvious circumstances, but there’s a possible blueprint here. Try to figure out what went wrong with the swing and (re)build from there.