TAMPA — Didi Gregorius saw Gary Sanchez for the first time this spring Friday at the Yankees minor league complex and didn’t notice any difference in the player who took the majors by storm last August.
That’s a good thing.
“He’s the same confident guy,” Gregorius said. “He never lost that. I don’t see a reason for him to change.”
This spring figures to be a lot different than last year for Sanchez, who displayed incredible power after being summoned to The Bronx for good in August and enters 2017 as the team’s starting catcher.
A year ago, many thought he would play well enough in the Grapefruit League to win the job as Brian McCann’s backup.
Instead, he had an awful spring, going 2-for-22 with a double. He was sent back to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Austin Romine remained with the Yankees to back up McCann.
“We all saw in spring training he was battling,” Gregorius said. “When he came up [in August], he did his job. Everyone saw what we did last year in the second half with all the young guys. We started clicking. We’re looking for the same thing this year.”
He ended up hitting 20 homers in 53 games, almost single-handedly keeping the Yankees in the playoff conversation despite their July sell-off.
Sanchez will be expected to produce again in the middle of the lineup — this time from Opening Day — and no longer will have the opportunity to take opposing teams and pitchers by surprise.
Though no one believes Sanchez will match the numbers he put up during his torrid final two months of 2016, expectations will remain high.
The next challenge for Sanchez will be playing well for an entire season at the major league level.
Despite the increased attention and the fact the Yankees will be without veterans Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran and Alex Rodriguez, Sanchez insisted there won’t be added pressure.
“Not right now, I don’t feel any,” Sanchez said through an interpreter. “My mentality is to go out there and do what I do.”
It’s easy to say that on the back fields of the team’s minor league complex in the middle of February. April in The Bronx might be different, especially considering he already is among the most popular members of the Yankees.
“That’s people’s opinion,” Sanchez said of becoming the face of the franchise. “I’m working hard to get better … offensively and defensively.”
And teams around the majors are working hard to find holes in Sanchez’s powerful right-handed swing and his approach at the plate.
He was up to the challenge last season, and Gary Denbo, the Yankees’ VP of Player Development, expects that to be the case again this year.
“To say he could do better would be difficult,” Denbo said. “To say he has a chance to be an All-Star type player over the course of his career, that’s not that difficult to say. Hopefully, he’s doing that with several other [young players] in the lineup.”
Thanks in part to the prospects they acquired before last year’s trade deadline, the Yankees have one of the most highly regarded farm systems in the majors. No matter how well Gleyber Torres, Clint Frazier or James Kaprielian play, however, they almost certainly won’t make the kind of impact this season Sanchez did toward the end of last summer.
“To accomplish what he did in the major leagues last year, I don’t know if anyone could predict that,” Denbo said. “I don’t know how you could, because no one had ever done it before.”
Sanchez went deep so often at such a fast pace, he seemed to set a new record nearly every day. That’s unlikely to happen again.
“All he wants is to have a good season,” Gregorius said. “That’s what we want as a team.”
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