In 2018, Giancarlo Stanton's first spring training with the New York Yankees, a team staffer weighed the many strengths of the lineup. Sure, Stanton and Aaron Judge would hit a lot of home runs and draw their share of walks, and the Yankees expected young infielder Gleyber Torres to develop into an impact player. They loved the work ethic of Miguel Andujar.
"But the best hitter on the team," the staffer said, "is Gary Sanchez."
This was a view held in a lot of corners of the organization. Yes, there were questions about Sanchez's defense at catcher, and some concern about his conditioning, but the rock-solid part of his potential was his ability to do damage at the plate, beyond his remarkable power. Despite bearing the disadvantages of being a right-handed hitter and slow, Sanchez hit .299 in his rookie season, and .278 in his first full year.
Sanchez's performance in those first two years is important context for the team's surprise over his disintegration at the plate the past three seasons. Sanchez batted .200 in 244 games over the 2018-2020 seasons, for an adjusted OPS+ of 99 -- not nearly enough production to offset the struggles he's had defensively. The Yankees saw for themselves that Sanchez can be far more than an all-or-nothing slugger who mixes in an occasional home run among many strikeouts, but that's exactly what he was in the small sample size of 2020, when he had nine singles and 10 homers in 49 games, with 64 strikeouts.
What happened?
Well, a theory of some rival evaluators is that Sanchez's confidence is all but shot, with his failures at the plate compounding it. Others note his increasing inability to cope with sliders, a pitch that seems to mystify him and accounts for a lot of his career-high 13.8% swing-and-miss rate in 2020, the worst of his career. At least some evaluators think that Sanchez has a hard time separating his offense from his defense, so that when he makes a mistake behind the plate, that tends to carry over to his hitting, and vice versa. And like many other young players, he seems to struggle to make in-game adjustments.
Whatever the roots of Sanchez's problems, repairing him as a hitter might be the biggest offseason priority for the Yankees, because if he doesn't hit, he bears little to no value. Sanchez struggled so badly at the plate that in the midst of the playoffs, Kyle Higashioka effectively took over as the Yankees' No. 1 catcher.
Other teams say that the Yankees seem intent to at least try to move ahead with Sanchez, to fix him, and that to date, they haven't indicated they're ready to move on. "I know this -- if the Yankees dumped him, I'd take him," one evaluator said. "When he's right, there are almost no catchers who hit like him. I'd take a shot at him and try to figure out what's happening with his swing and his mind."
• On the Baseball Tonight podcast the other day, Paul Hembekides picked out a pitcher and a position player from the growing list of free agents whom he considers to be undervalued, and in that conversation, he focused on Jake Odorizzi, the 30-year-old right-hander who has been with the Minnesota Twins the past three seasons. Trevor Bauer is going to get the most significant deal among pitchers, at a level above that of Odorizzi, but two pitchers similar in age and experience are already off the board -- Kevin Gausman and Marcus Stroman accepted qualifying offers from the Giants and Mets, respectively.
In 2020, Odorizzi started just four games, spending a lot of time on the injured list, first with a sore back, then returning after being hit in the chest in August. But Hembo referred to Odorizzi as a "sleeping giant" among the free agents, because of his pitch profile -- a good fastball, a cutter, a slider, a splitter -- and compared his 2019 season to that of Zack Wheeler, who signed a five-year, $118 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies last winter. A lot of the velocity-range metrics tied to Odorizzi's pitches compare pretty closely to those of Shane Bieber, so it really isn't a surprise that the New York Mets, San Francisco Giants and Toronto Blue Jays, as well as the Twins, have expressed early-market interest in Odorizzi.
Also on the podcast: Steve Gelbs of SNY on the Mets' brand new world, and whom he expects the team to target this winter; and Jeff Passan on the winter market and what's ahead for Bauer, George Springer, J.T. Realmuto and Francisco Lindor.
• Some experienced executives and agents are reading the market from opposite sides of the labor spectrum, and projecting the same market conditions:
1. There is going to be more player movement than expected in the days leading to Dec. 2, the deadline by which teams must tender contracts to players on their 40-man rosters. Club officials and agents expect a mass shift of players, including many with three to five-plus years of service time moving because teams won't want to pay them what the arbitration process prescribes. A small handful of arbitration-eligible players will likely be dealt, while most will be released into the enormous pool of free agents.
2. Some veteran free agents who are in the middle or lower rung of the pool will work out one-year contracts because they like the spot they are in -- for example, Josh Tomlin took a one-year, $1.25 million deal with the Atlanta Braves the other day. In October, Houston Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel agreed to a pay cut on a 2021 contract, to $7 million, after he was paid an $8.4 million salary (prorated for the 60-game schedule) in 2020.
3. Once those deals are done, then the winter freeze will set in and dozens and dozens of free agents will likely have to wait weeks for their deals, as both teams and players sit back and hope for signs of better financial conditions ahead -- for example, a widely distributed COVID-19 vaccine that will increase the likelihood that there will be fans in the stands in 2021.
• Theo Epstein, the Chicago Cubs' head of baseball operations, has acknowledged that the team faces changes this winter. In conversations with other teams, the Cubs are signaling there will be significant turnover on the roster, with a willingness to move almost any veteran -- as well as just about anyone from the core group of position players who won the 2016 World Series, including shortstop Javier Baez.
Rival evaluators are closely following the Cubs' handling of Kris Bryant, the 2016 NL MVP who will make something in the range of $18 million after posting a .644 OPS in 34 games in 2020. Bryant will be eligible for free agency next fall and the Cubs have made him available for trade in the past, but some officials wonder if the Chicago can find a trade partner before Dec. 2 given Bryant's 2021 salary, which may be beyond what almost all teams are willing to pay. "You have to look at it this way. What would he get in salary [for 2021] on a one-year deal if he were a free agent right now?" one official said. "He probably wouldn't get $18 million."
• A rival evaluator noted that Tuesday was a really bad day for some folks in baseball, and he listed them in order:
1. Philadelphia Phillies
2. Washington Nationals
3. Atlanta Braves
This is because Steve Cohen announced his presence with authority in his first media availability since buying the Mets, making clear his intention to build a powerful, well-rounded organization that he hopes will be like an East Coast version of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Intentions don't always translate into results, but it's evident that Cohen will throw his substantial wealth behind the effort to improve the Mets, the front office and the team's player development system. The Dodgers have demonstrated what can happen when that is well-executed -- eight consecutive division titles, three World Series appearances, and now, a championship.
Each of the best free agents -- Realmuto, Bauer, Springer -- would fit the Mets' needs nicely. Bryant also could theoretically be a fit, as a third baseman and a right-handed hitter who could balance a lineup that is heavy in left-handed hitters.
• I had the responsibility of voting for the AL Most Valuable Player in 1995, and with the 10th spot on my ballot, I wrote in Cal Ripken's name, a ceremonial nod to his importance in baseball that summer following the resolution of the long labor stoppage. The sport badly needed a figure of credibility for fans, and Cal was extraordinary in that role that season, breaking Lou Gehrig's record for consecutive games played and signing about a billion autographs along the way. It's pretty obvious that the other voters didn't share my view -- Ripken got a total of three points, finishing in a tie for 19th place.
There are always unusual down-ballot choices, and this year was no different. Boston's Alex Verdugo got a fifth-place vote for AL MVP -- the only vote he received from the 30 writers who cast ballots. Kenta Maeda finished second for the AL Cy Young Award, but was not named on two ballots. Two writers did not include Washington's Juan Soto, arguably baseball's best hitter in the 47 games he played -- he hit .351, with a .490 on-base percentage and .695 slugging percentage. The Angels' David Fletcher, who had a fine season but was his team's third-best player, got a 10th-place vote.
Alyson Footer of MLB.com explained her vote for Fletcher on Twitter: "If I'm recalling correctly, by the time I got that far down the ballot, I didn't see a lot that stood out, so I believe I compared WAR estimations. Additionally, Fletcher was lauded as hugely important to keeping the offense intact -- he moved around the infield -- covering myriad positions as regulars went down. He's also a terrific defender, and I personally am more impressed with defense than home runs.
"And finally, why the heck are we voting for 10 people for MVP? After five, I'm fairly confident I got it right. So by the time I got to 10, Fletcher seemed appropriate -- a nod to a good player who, while clearly not the MVP of the league, had a pretty nice showing."
• Ryan Tepera was named on the NL MVP ballot after writer Rick Hummel made a mistake -- as he later acknowledged -- by voting for the Cubs reliever rather than Nationals infielder Trea Turner. This sort of thing happens from time to time, and it might be a good idea for the Baseball Writers' Association of America to ask someone like Sarah Langs of MLB.com or Paul Hembekides of ESPN to serve as a safety net -- identify outlier choices among the ballots and just double-check with the voter that this is what they intended.
• The Astros have serious interest in retaining outfielder Michael Brantley, who is coming off an excellent season in which he batted .300/.364/.476 and was a finalist for a Gold Glove Award. ... When Noah Syndergaard blew out his elbow, there was speculation among other teams that he might be a candidate for a non-tender, in light of the reality that he might miss a lot of next season and not have enough per-dollar production for the Wilpons. But with Steve Cohen taking control, the Mets have a whole lot more financial flexibility to keep Syndergaard, in the hope he could be a factor for them in the latter half of the 2021 season. ... By the way, the decision to present a qualifying offer to Stroman was made before Cohen assumed control of the team -- and the incoming front office was surprised, but not surprised that Stroman accepted, given how free agent salaries are expected to plummet. ... One of my favorite stories about new Miami Marlins general manager Kim Ng is from her time working in the commissioner's office, helping to oversee the international signing market, which has been, at times, an arena where teams regularly skirt the rules. Kim was an assistant GM of the Yankees in my time covering the team for The New York Times, and is genial and soft-spoken; she's never been a loud talker. But as one of her colleagues tells the story, Ng learned about how a chronic offender had worked to skirt the international signing rules and exploded in profane anger about the brazen audacity; that team would be penalized for its transgression. There will be a lot of folks in the game rooting for Ng to succeed.