Yankees staring down the barrel of Silver Slugger drought at position they once dominated

Since the Louisville Slugger Silver Slugger Awards were launched in 1980 to honor individual offensive excellence, the New York Yankees have been among the strongest performers at one typically undercooked position: catcher.

Though they were light behind the dish in the '80s, the Yankees have seen multiple different winners rise to the top of the crop since Mike Stanley took the award home in 1993. The Detroit Tigers captured eight of the first 13 catching Silver Sluggers — and, even more insane than that, two of the ones they didn't win were captured by former (Lance Parrish, 1990, Angels) and future (Mickey Tettleton, 1989, Orioles) Tigers. From that point on, though, the Yankees lead the way with eight wins pulled off by four different backstops: Jorge Posada (five, 2000-2003, 2007) and one each from Stanley, Brian McCann (2015) and Gary Sánchez (2017). The Yanks barely fended off Ivan Rodriguez by himself, 8-7, but by gosh, they did it.

Yankees' Silver Slugger curse at catcher can be tied to Gary Sánchez's lone win

The Sánchez win marks a line in the sand for multiple depressing reasons. First off, that should've been only the beginning for El Gary, who followed up his 2016 cameo (where he almost stole the Rookie of the Year in two months) with an incredible age-24 season. Sánchez pummeled 33 homers, knocked in 90 runs, and ... got ignored by Joe Girardi in the dugout during a crucial ALDS moment we'd rather forget. That odd distrust led to Girardi's dismissal (in part), the ushering in of the Aaron Boone era, and a whole bunch of Sánchez regression that didn't make much sense.

The bat was always going to be the calling card, but the defensive awareness got worse and worse, and the offense took a depressing 2018 dip (18 homers in 89 games with an 89 OPS+ is tough to do, but he did it). He was an All-Star in 2019, but it wasn't the same. When he found himself shipped out after the 2021 season, he never again attained bonafide starter status in any future stop (though he'd be a nice right-handed complement right about now if he weren't in Milwaukee).

Since 2017, Sánchez's downward trend line meant trouble for the Yankees' chances behind the dish in the Silver Slugger race. In 2019, he got his lunch eaten by ... Mitch Garver, our potential September platoon, of all people. Otherwise, the usual suspects — Salvador Pérez, Adley Rutschman, Alejandro Kirk and Cal Raleigh — have split the honor.

After watching a full year of Austin Wells in 2024, I would have sworn to you that he would eventually take home the award at a weakened position. Since his pre-September '24 peak, though, the trend line has been similar to Sánchez's, and the Silver Slugger goal seems interminably deferred. Time being a flat circle and all, it even seems the pendulum has swung back to the Tigers, with Dillon Dingler looking to emulate their first decade of dominance this winter.

Who knows? Maybe that means Jorge Posada Jr. will be the one to finally snap the drought in the Bronx.

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