Yankees: Brandon Lowe breakout has nothing to do with Gary Sanchez decision

Yankees manager Aaron Boone had to make a complex and pressure-filled decision regarding Gary Sanchez in the playoffs. It wasn’t as simple as waiting around.

Watching Brandon Lowe return to his 2020 MVP candidate form in the World Series has Yankees fans feeling some type of way about the inconsistent role that Aaron Boone managed to carve out down the stretch for a similarly struggling Gary Sanchez.

Unfortunately, though Kevin Cash showed patience where Boone showed compulsiveness, the two decisions have very little to do with one another.

Lowe, very recently 0-for-18 against the Yankees in a contentious five-game ALDS, remained in the Rays’ lineup day in and day out, and his trio of homers in the World Series (despite a .176) average have rewarded his manager for sticking with him through adversity.

But, with all due respect, what other choice did Cash have?

Unlike Gary Sanchez, Lowe comes with no pressure. No baggage. He’s simply one of the Tampa Bay Rays’ most important players, a potential 2020 American League MVP coming off a 2.1 WAR, 14-homer “small sample size” ’20 season. Despite a weak five-game series with the Yankees, Lowe’s recent track record was littered with positives, and there was no good reason to expect his slump to be eternal.

And, even if it was, there was nary a narrative at play that would’ve filleted Cash for sticking with one of his most important players. The blame would’ve fallen on Lowe for failing to deliver, not Cash for filling out the lineup the same way he had all summer long.

Sanchez, as many Yankees fans know, was a different beast entirely. Unlike Lowe’s season, Sanchez’s 2020 could not have been worse, and his at-the-plate malaise was also carried into behind-the-plate struggles as a brutal summer dragged on. His 10 home runs impressed, but the Sanchino only delivered 13 other hits during the campaign, almost daring Boone to stick with him while flaunting a mockery of the Sabermetric era. If home runs really are the prime directive these days, strikeouts and shameful plate appearances be damned, then Sanchez was working hard to be the most extreme and perplexing example of value in the modern era. His negative WAR, though, proved what we all saw on a daily basis; this simply wasn’t his year.

Plus, there’s the complicating factor that messing with Sanchez’s rhythm wasn’t Boone’s decision whatsoever. It became painfully clear as the regular season dragged on that Gerrit Cole preferred to work with Kyle Higashioka. At the very least, Sanchez was guaranteed to be removed from the ALDS opener, creating five full days of rest after Game 2 of the Wild Card series, featuring a Sanchez home run and sacrifice fly in the pivotal ninth inning. That day off wasn’t Boone’s call, and the Sanchez that greeted him for Game 2 of the Rays series resembled the worst the slugger had to offer.

It’s not as if Kevin Cash isn’t occasionally reactive, too; Blake Snell was yanked in a potential series-ending gaffe in favor of an ineffective Diego Castillo in Game 6 of the ALCS. Castillo’s implosion brought the Rays to the precipice of a 3-0 choke.

Did Aaron Boone make the right call sitting Sanchez in Games 3 and 4, a pair of contests which the Yankees split? It’s hard to say, and was clearly a gut maneuver instead of a by-the-book assessment. It also can’t be lost in the shuffle that Higashioka’s blocking objectively saved several runs for Jordan Montgomery in the team’s final win of 2020.

But it is clear that, no matter what you believe, Cash faced zero pressure in sticking with Lowe, whereas Boone, facing down the mounting history of the Gary Sanchez narrative and backed into a corner by his ace, chose to press an alternate button. Dating back to 2018 (or 2017, if you don’t consider .176 and .194 in the ALDS and ALCS successful), Sanchez’s playoff struggles are becoming a far larger sample size than anyone ever wanted them to. Whether you give that any merit or not, it’s quite obvious why Boone was more prone to panic than Cash was.

Now, Brett Gardner vs. Clint Frazier? That one’s fairly unjustifiable.

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