Yankees’ MiLB News: Sanchez in Trouble?
By Wayne Cavadi
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Bad news is coming out of Trenton. It appears Trenton Thunder skipper, Tony Franklin, has reached his boiling point and is rather irate with his young superstar. The Examiner reported that for two night’s in a row, the New York Yankees’ top prospect has been out of the lineup for disciplinary reasons. Matt Kardos, the Thunder’s beat reporter, has confirmed via several posts on his Twitter feed that Sanchez is being held out of the line-up as some sort of disciplinary punishment. Dan Pfeiffer of the Examiner, again on Friday night, confirmed that Sanchez wasn’t in the lineup, and questioned whether Sanchez was even with the team:
What happened? What did Sanchez do that would garner being bench for perhaps the whole weekend series against New Britain? That’s the weird part of this story, and no one seems to know. Sanchez was in the lineup for Wednesday night’s game against and was a late scratch for some unknown team violation. Here’s what we know:
- This is the second such time a closed door meeting has happened between Tony Franklin and Gary Sanchez this season. We do not know what either meeting was about.
- Tony Franklin, throughout his tenure, has proven to be a pretty cool customer. Several years ago, one of his top prospects, Jose Tabata, left the ball park in the middle of a game and Franklin didn’t blow his lid.
- Although Franklin has not informed anyone as to why Sanchez is benched, he has made it clear that it is his actions, and not the fact the Francisco Cervelli is with the team on a rehab assignment. “Gary (Sanchez) is out of there for a couple of days until we decide he deserves to play again, plain and simple,” The Examiner reported Franklin saying. “It’s more to it than just playing. It’s conducting yourself like a professional at all times.”
Sanchez entered the season as the Yankees’ top overall prospect. He is currently batting .251 on the season with seven home runs and 36 RBI. Sanchez is important to this team not only for his bat, but his consistency. With the Yankees pitching woes on the big league level, Trenton’s pitching staff has been up and down between the bigs and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre this season.
The one thing that has remained consistent has been Sanchez behind the plate catching whomever Franklin had to throw out there. Now, it appears Cervelli will be the man, as Sanchez most likely won’t even make the trip for this weekend’s three-game bout with the New Britain Rock Cats. Stay tuned, Yankees’ fans. As soon as we at Yanks Go Yard know more on the Sanchez situation, so will you!