Yankees: David Cone speaks the truth about Gary Sanchez

During Tuesday night’s telecast on the YES Network Yankees legend and YES broadcaster, David Cone spoke the truth about Gary Sanchez and his defense behind the plate.

Sanchez, who has been much maligned for his propensity for passed balls early in his career was in the midst of another difficult night defensively while catching Yankees rookie starter Domingo German. Early in the game, the Rangers scored a run on a wild pitch that bounced away from Sanchez and later on Cone discussed how all the criticism over his defense has been way overblown.

I for one could not agree more with Cone and was happy to see someone of his stature defend the Yankees All-Star catcher. Too often fans and analysts around the game have piled on to Sanchez about his issues blocking balls while failing to discuss how strong he is in every other facet playing the position.

Of course, we’d all like to see Sanchez cut down on the passed balls and wild pitches but people seem to forget about his cannon of an arm and ability to throw attempted base stealers out. In his career, Sanchez has thrown out 36% of attempted base stealers which is above average. He also led the AL in average pop time at 1.93 seconds a season ago, according to baseball savant.com.

In addition, his pitch framing is in the top half of the game and he does a more than adequate job of handling a Yankees pitching staff that is not easy to catch by any means. Catching guys on a nightly basis like Aroldis Chapman who can throw up to 103 mph and Dellin Betances who can reach 100 mph and lose complete control of all his pitches at times is no easy task.

Last night Sanchez had troubles with German on the mound but the rookie was nowhere near the plate for most of his outing. He walked three in 3.2 innings and was all over the place with his high 90s fastball and a breaking ball he continuously bounced in the dirt. Most big league catchers would have had trouble catching German last night but yet there will still be plenty of people who put the blame on Sanchez for the young right-hander’s three wild pitches.

Cone noted that blocking is a weak part of Sanchez’s game but he also made a great point that he makes up for his shaky defense with his offensive prowess.

“If he has a few extra passed balls a year, or he doesn’t move as well on pitches that are away that he looks more in or vice versa, then how much does that really mean in the grand scheme of things?“If he had eight extra passed balls last year, maybe that led to an extra two or three runs scored over the whole year! We know about his offense. When he’s playing at the catcher position, his offense plays bigger…his value is as a catcher.”

Despite his .230 average early on in the season, Sanchez is still the best offensive catcher in the game by a wide margin. That’s been the case from the moment he burst on to the scene back in 2016. Since his debut, no catcher has hit more home runs than El Gary with 65. The Royals’ Salvador Perez is second, way behind with 41.

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When a player at such a premium position is putting up those kinds of offensive numbers in the heart of your order you can deal with some defensive miscues every now and then.

Sanchez is the kind of player every team in baseball dreams of having as their backstop. For as many runs as he might let in on wild pitches or passed balls, he’ll cover that and then some with the 35 to 40 HRs and 100 plus RBI he’ll put up by the end of the season.

Maybe down the road, the Yankees might consider moving him to DH or first base. We’ve seen that happen with many catchers later in their careers, however, now is not the time to have those discussions. Sanchez is too valuable behind the plate and the Yankees know that. They are psyched to have him as their catcher and every Yankee fan should be as well.

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As Cone said, “I would like to throw to that guy every day in the week. I’ll take him as my catcher.’’

That’s a five-time world champion and former Cy Young saying that. He knows a heck of a lot more about the game than anybody else and knows that in the grand scheme of things the good far outweighs the bad with Sanchez and it’s not even close.