Nearly two months into the 2022 season, the Minnesota Twins are in first place in the AL Central and hold a comfortable lead in the division.
A big reason for Minnesota’s success this season has been offensive production. Home runs continue to be a crucial part of the team’s lineup. They rank 11th in baseball with 42 home runs, and their 4.34 runs scored per game ranks 13-best in baseball. And the bats have been particularly hot recently. The Twins are averaging 6.3 runs per game in their last three series.
Minnesota’s offensive success has come from the usual suspects – Byron Buxton, Luis Arraez, Jorge Polanco, etc. However, the lineup has been getting more production from top to bottom. Gio Urshela and Max Kepler are also pretty locked in. But Gary Sánchez has been one of the hottest Twins hitters through this 10-game stretch.
When Sánchez first arrived during Spring Training this year, there were questions about his role on the team. He showed potential with the New York Yankees, but fans and the team eventually became frustrated with his consistency as a hitter and defensively behind the plate.
The Twins needed a No. 2 catcher after trading Mitch Garver to the Texas Rangers and Ben Rortvedt to the Yankees in the deal to acquire Sánchez and Urshela. Naturally, people fixated on Minnesota’s decision to trade Josh Donaldson in that swap. The catcher swap felt secondary, but it was an interesting aspect of the deal. New York got a defense-first catcher in Rortvedt, while the Twins landed Sánchez, a bat-first catcher who can also DH.
As an offense-first catcher who struggled defensively, it was unclear what the Twins planned to do with Sánchez. Was he going to be a full-time DH? Or was Sánchez going to split time behind the plate with incumbent starting catcher Ryan Jeffers?
With no real options at catcher besides Jeffers and Sánchez, the team is banking on both of them to play a majority of the time. The Twins will be at a disadvantage if one of them is out for a significant amount of time. Therefore, they must have thought highly of Sánchez’s ability to bounce back not just at the plate but behind it.
The Twins have been able to craft a nice role for Sánchez. DH has been the main spot he’s been penciled in along with catcher. Splitting time between catchers has been a Twins specialty recently. Jeffers and Garver formed a solid 1-2 punch behind the plate, and so did Garver and Jason Castro in 2019. Catching can strain a player’s body, so the Twins are willing to put fewer innings on their backstops to keep them fresh.
New York was beginning to lose patience with Sánchez. He looked like he hit his ceiling as an above-average player with flaws in his game. Sánchez finished with a .230/.318/.487 line in the Bronx last season, with one of his worst seasons since 2018.
Sánchez took some time adjusting to his new home in Minnesota. Through his first 20 games this year, Sánchez’s slash line was just .203/.263/.338 with only one home run. His approach at the plate wasn’t helping things. He struck out 30 percent of the time and walked at a 3.8 percent clip.
But things started to click over his last 10 games when he slashed .263/.333/.658 with three home runs and 12 runs driven in. While the numbers might not show it, Sánchez started to get more comfortable at the plate. His strikeouts dipped slightly to 28.9 percent, but he was able to double his walks with an 8.9 percent walk rate.
Sánchez’s success over the last couple of weeks has taken the Twins to another level. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the team has ripped off another string of wins by going 8-2 in their last 10 games. Even though Sánchez isn’t the sole reason for the hot stretch, his production has been vital.
Twins fans have to love watching a red-hot Sánchez. But he still has to show that he can sustain that production for long stretches during the rest of the season. Almost every big league hitter has a good stretch in a season, even Clete Thomas. Can Sánchez sustain his value to a division-title contending Twins team?
His recent numbers are backed up by his percentile rankings through Baseball Savant.
Sánchez’s catching ability has been a noticeable improvement from the prior season. Baseball Savant puts him in the 64th percentile, so good but not great. While that may not be elite-level catcher play, it still is at a high level compared to earlier in his career.
Yankees fans would regularly put out clips on social media of Sánchez’s defensive woes. He made too many gaffes in the field, whether he was misplaying a ball in the dirt or straight-up missing a tag at the plate. Statistically, Sánchez recorded a 45.9 percent strike rate and a -6 catcher framing rate in 2021. However, last year he ranked in the bottom third of MLB catchers with a 0 catcher framing runs clip and raised his strike rate to 47.8 percent.
Sánchez doesn’t have to be a Gold Glove catcher to bring value to the Twins. Still, pitchers seem to feel increasingly comfortable around the plate throughout the season with every start. Jeffers is the master framer, so all Sánchez needs to do is continue bringing an above-average bat to counter his lower defensive numbers and hope he can bring them closer to league average.
What role Sánchez can fill this season may still be decided, but things are starting to take shape this season.
Fielding and catching numbers for Sánchez consistently improved through the season. That should give Twins fans hope to see the veteran player continue to take strides defensively, even if Sánchez will never become a great starting catcher. Jeffers is the primary option behind the plate, and outside of injury, the Twins front office hopes it stays that way.
Sánchez can bring the most of the skills teams are looking for in a veteran bat. The issue has been consistency. While not quite as drastic, Sánchez feels like a Miguel Sanó-type hitter. Sánchez can be an impact hitter, but his high strikeout numbers suggest that if he can’t square up on the ball, he will have another cold stretch. Still, Sánchez has plenty of at-bats to prove to manager Rocco Baldelli that he can be much more than a veteran bat. He could push an already talented lineup to the next level.
Gary Sánchez has been a major question mark for the Twins since he arrived in Ft. Myers. A slow start to the season has been followed by a two-week stretch where they are competing for the AL Central. With the help of Sánchez’s hot bat, the Twins should find a way to keep this ride going as long as possible.
