Latest reported Gary Sanchez update will truly shock Yankees fans

We bet Yankees fans didn’t consider this scenario involving Gary Sanchez.

While there’s still a small contingent of Gary Sanchez backers who (for some reason) are still bullish on the catcher’s future with the New York Yankees despite his consistently bad play, most fans have already moved on from the idea and think the team should trade the two-time All-Star this offseason.

However, we’ve explored that multiple times and it won’t be easy, especially since he’ll be earning over $6 million in 2021 in his second year of arbitration eligibility. What team will want to inherit that salary for his bad defense and inconsistent (and sometimes non-existent) offense when most front offices are trying to cut costs?

The answer is not many, if any at all! And we somehow missed this potential alternate scenario that would jettison Sanchez, likely because we didn’t even think general manager Brian Cashman would consider it.

Yankees insider George A. King III of the New York Post spoke to executives about the Yankees’ situation with Sanchez and it appears the team might not even tender him a contract this offseason. Wow.

“Dec. 2, which is Sanchez’s 28th birthday, is the deadline for teams to offer pre-arbitration and arbitration-eligible players a contract for next season. Any player who isn’t tendered, and there a lot of industry types who believe Sanchez won’t be, is a free agent,” King wrote.“Because of the financial baths MLB teams took due to COVID-19 preventing fan attendance, the list of non-tenders is expected to be deeper than normal and littered with talented players who are too expensive for teams to retain.”

Those Yadier Molina rumors are swirling for a reason, guys. If the Yankees can’t shed Sanchez’s $6 million-plus figure in a trade and they want an upgrade behind the plate, non-tendering him remains a very real possibility. It’s unfortunate it may have to come to this, but that’s the sad reality of pandemic baseball.

You can bet Cashman is going to exhaust any and all options on the trade market because the team would rather get something for Sanchez, but you can easily see why rival GMs won’t bite. If they have an inclination the slugger will become a free agent this offseason because the Yankees don’t want to pay him, then they’ll gladly wait.

Are the Yankees eyeing the Francisco Lindor market before signing DJ LeMahieu?

It's a question worth asking: Are the New York Yankees waiting to see how much Francisco Lindor will cost in a trade before signing DJ LeMahieu?