Healthy Sanchez feeling more comfortable in ‘new stance’ behind the plate
Gary Sanchez dealt with the flu and a sore back during spring training in March, before baseball was shut down by COVID-19.
With the Yankees set to open their season next Thursday in Washington, the 27-year-old feels healthy and, just as importantly, said he’s had more time to get comfortable with the lower crouch new catching instructor Tanner Swanson implemented this spring.
“I feel much better now compared to back in spring training,’’ Sanchez said through an interpreter Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. “Overall, I’ve had more time to practice and work with my new stance. In spring training, my back held me back a little bit and prevented me from going at it the way I wanted to. The past two or three months, I went to the Dominican Republic and worked really hard on it.”
The results will be there for all to see soon enough.
Swanson was hired away from the Twins in the offseason in an attempt to get the most out of Sanchez defensively.
A year ago, Sanchez improved his plate-blocking skills, and Swanson said he wants to maintain that while also boosting his effectiveness at framing pitches.
“As the general awareness of pitch-framing continues to grow, more teams and organizations are beginning to value it, so the margins get smaller and the details become really important,’’ Swanson said.
Also important is helping Sanchez develop behind the plate, while not robbing anything from what he does at the plate — especially in a 60-game season.
“We try to be mindful and put
him in a position to be at full strength to do what he does and not have any diminished returns in terms of what we expect from him offensively,’’ Swanson said. “That’s a big part of his game and we don’t want to take anything away.”
So far, Swanson has been pleased not just with how Sanchez has looked, but how he’s adapted to the change.
“One thing that’s maybe not talked about enough is this is one of the hardest pitching staffs to catch in all of baseball with the quality of arms throughout,’’ Swanson said. “For a guy like him to step into a starting role at a young age — especially in this market, on this stage in New York — says something about his ability to stay pretty grounded and pretty neutral. And he doesn’t get overly excited. He doesn’t get overly low.”
And that’s continued in spring training 2.0 in The Bronx.
“The biggest thing with Gary that I’ve been most impressed with is his ability to experiment with a new catching style on the biggest stage in our game,’’ Swanson said.
“It speaks to his desire to grow and get better and his ability to be a little bit vulnerable.”
An empty Yankee Stadium will have piped in noise and walk-up music this season.
With customers not allowed in the ballpark, a person with knowledge of the plan said MLB provides a system for clubs to pipe in crowd noise and music that the Yankees will use during the regular season.
The Yankees are going to test the system and could do that Friday night in their final intrasquad game or Sunday and Monday when they host the Mets and Phillies in exhibition games.
The Yankee players are in favor of the fake crowd noise, and hitters will use their walk-up music on the way to the plate.
“I think it is a good idea if they are going to allow steady crowd noise to be pumped in. That would be good for the guys, obviously it gets pretty quiet,’’ reliever Zack Britton said last week. “I have heard of teams, including ours, that might be exploring putting in some type of crowd noise throughout the game. I am not sure how loud it is going to be and what it would look like, but I think it is a good idea, and our team would like that and create some type of atmosphere in the Stadium.’’
Backup catcher Kyle Higashioka isn’t against it.
“I don’t think I would be opposed to it,” he said. “We have some light music out there while we are playing, to break up the dead silence. It’s better than it was the first day, where we were just playing in an abyss, just a void of sound. I wouldn’t be opposed to crowd noise.’’