Should The Yankees Have Released The Kraken?
In an offseason where owners across baseball are crying poor due to revenue lost from ticket and game-day sales following a pandemic-shortened 2020 MLB season with no fans in the crowd, Wednesday’s non-tender deadline was unlike any other. Throughout the league, front offices looked to cut costs wherever possible, releasing talented players such as 2019 All-Star David Dahl, Kyle Schwarber, former top-three pick Carlos Rodon, Adam Duvall, and Eddie Rosario into free-agency rather than tendering them a contract and risking having to pay them in arbitration. Yet of all the players up for a contract this week, the most polarizing name had to be Yankees starting catcher Gary Sanchez.
To answer the question of whether or not the Yankees should have tendered Sanchez a contract, let’s look at a couple of different factors. In his second year of arbitration, Mlbtraderumors projects Sanchez will make between $5.1–6.4 million dollars this season, with slightly more uncertainty in that projection due to a lack of information on how arbitration hearings will be handled following a sixty-game season, and lower counting stats that traditionally dominate these hearings. Let’s take the highest number of this range, $6.4 million; that would put Sanchez as right around 7th highest paid catcher in baseball behind Buster Posey, Yasmani Grandal, Salvador Perez, Travis d’Arnaud, Christian Vazquez, and Wilson Contreras assuming he comes close to his projected high mark of $7.4 million in arbitration. So the first question we have to answer is whether or not Gary Sanchez is a top-ten catcher in baseball, which I think even after a down-season, the answer is still yes, although it may be close to the 9–10 than the 6–7 range.
Last season was another lost one at the plate for Sanchez, as he was worth -0.5 WAR for the Yankees, buoyed by a .147/.253/.365 line, 68 OPS+, and 64:18 strikeout to walk ratio. The scariest note could be that Sanchez, long criticized for his defense at catcher, gave up a league-leading five passed balls, but still had a higher defensive WAR at -0.1, than he did with the bat at -0.2 offensive WAR. But on the positive side, Sanchez’s ten home runs did rank second amongst catchers, and projects to 33 home runs over a 162 game season, or one less than his thirty-four in his 2019 All-Star season. This power is not common for a catcher, and given that Sanchez would have been projected for his second straight thirty home run season, and third in four years, there’s no way the Yankees could have reasonably given up on that potential production for under $7 million, especially at the catcher position.
The next factor we have to consider when it comes to Sanchez is the other catcher in the Yankees clubhouse, Kyle Higashioka. Once the Yankees let Austin Romine go to Detroit, Higashioka took over as the Yankees primary backup catcher and thrived in the role, providing strong defense and four home runs across 16 games. Boosted by becoming Gerrit Cole’s personal catcher down the stretch, Higashioka appeared in five of the Yankees seven postseason games, hitting .308 against the Rays in the ALDS Sanchez’s expense, with the starter only appearing in three postseason games for the Yankees this year. This may have been the biggest reason that fans felt Sanchez may have been on the roster bubble going into the offseason, with the thought being that if the Yankees didn’t trust Sanchez enough to start in the postseason, they couldn’t trust him to anchor their pitching staff in the regular season. Hell, I’m the first one to admit that thought crossed my mind, and while I still think Sanchez may get traded, there’s a reason Higashioka has played 72 career games at thirty, and it’s because he’s a nice complementary piece, but not the guy you should be parading out at catcher 100+ games a season. The Yankees would have been worse off with Higashioka as the opening day starting catcher, and instead will find themselves in the ideal situation of letting Sanchez sink or swim, and having Higashioka ready to go should Gary find himself treading in the deep end.
Yet of all the reasons the Yankees had to consider in bringing back Sanchez, it all goes back to the almighty dollar. I know the owners lost money this year, but the Yankees still, and always have plenty of money to go around. We’re not talking about paying Sanchez $10+ million a season on a multi-year deal here; we’re talking about paying him at most $6.4 million, which is less than the Yankees gave Brett Gardner to return last season as a veteran presence for the team. The Yankees should never be nickel and diming (the are the Evil Empire for a reason) but with Steve Cohen injecting new life into the Mets across town, it would be even more egregious if the Yankees let a two-time All-Star catcher who has led catchers in home runs throughout his career walk over $6.4 million. And for anyone who thinks that the Yankees would be better off letting Sanchez go and pursuing JT Realmuto and James McCann in free agency, you can almost guarantee that would mean one of (if not both) DJ LeMaheiu or Mashario Tanka would be playing outside of Pinstripes this season, which is a luxury the team cannot afford. Plus, imagine if Sanchez was non-tendered, signed a prove-it deal with an AL rival, and immediately became a .250 hitter to go along with his power? Well, then we’re talking about a perennial All-Star, one that the Yankees would have given up on because of six million dollars.
Yankee fans, if you wanted Gary gone this offseason, I get it. There isn’t a single player in baseball more frustrating to watch underachieve based on his potential, and that’s before factoring in his epic cold streaks that seem to go on for months as he swings over breaking ball after breaking ball and heaters are thrown right by him. But look at the big picture for a second; you have a young, multi-time All-Star at a premium position that you can retain for $6–7 million, and that’s at the high range. In what world do you ever give up on a player like that? Yes, there will be bumps along the way, Twitter rants, and remotes thrown from watching Sanchez play, but at the end of the day, the Yankees made the right call by not releasing the Kraken.
