Yankees: Gary Sanchez is proving the naysayers wrong

Yankees All-Star catcher, Gary Sanchez, had a horrific 2018 season causing fans to criticize him harshly about his defense. Sanchez has rebounded in the 2019 season defensively in addition to putting up monster numbers offensively.

We’ve always known how talented Yankees All-Star catcher Gary Sanchez is both behind and at the plate. He has elite power to all fields, along with a cannon of a throwing arm that limits the running game. During the 2017 season, Sanchez slashed .278/.345/.531 with 33 HRs and 90 RBIs.

However, things started changing during the 2018 season when Sanchez was placed on the IL twice due to a groin injury that clearly affected his performance. He also hid a left shoulder injury that had been bothering him since the 2017 season. Yankee fans weren’t aware of this and became relentless towards The Kraken criticizing him when he was both not hustling to first base, being sloppy behind the plate and wasn’t producing offensively. He ended the season hitting .186 with 18 HR and 53 RBI in 89 games.

As always, Jack Curry of the YES Network is right with his insights. He gave his thoughts about Sanchez during the ’18 offseason that if you asked Sanchez about the 2018 season, he’d be embarrassed. He thought Sanchez would get better defensively, but he needs to be more focused and into the game and in order to rebound next season.

It turns out Jack was right, as always. The Kraken has improved both defensively and offensively. This may have been due to having shoulder surgery, along with having an offseason to recover from the groin injury he suffered last season.

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Sanchez has improved a lot, both defensively and offensively this season. In just 54 games he’s hitting .269 with 22 HRs and 50 RBIs. He’s only thrown out .217 of attempted base-stealers but he only has four passed balls. That is quite a difference compared to both the ’17 season and ’18 season when he led the AL East with 16 and 18 passed balls.

In the last 31 games, El Kraken has 9 HRs and 24 RBIs, which is outstanding especially because it’s led to the Yankees winning a lot of games. He’s a legitimate AL MVP candidate this season and he deserves so much credit for how he’s bounced back.

He hasn’t let the negativity from fans get to him and he worked hard to improve himself. Unfortunately, I was one of the fans who wanted him traded because I had my share of doubts as I had enough. I honestly thought he was being lazy, but it turned out that he was actually injured. I admit I made a big mistake here.

The Kraken still has a ton of potential and the best from him is yet to come. Along with himself Didi Gregorius, Giancarlo Stanton, DJ LeMahieu and Luke Voit this Yankee lineup will be a force to be reckoned with once Aaron Judge returns to the lineup tonight.