Gary Sanchez’s strongest asset may still be his bat, but he’s starting to look like a force behind the plate, too. During Friday night’s series opener against the visiting Rays, Sanchez posted a Michael Pineda fastball directly to second base to catch Corey Dickerson off the bag.
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Defensive catching metrics have yet to be perfected, and Sanchez’s 22 cups of major league coffee are hardly enough to draw any substantial conclusions from. With that caveat, the 23-year-old sits sixth among major league catchers with four Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) and fifth with three Stolen Base Runs Saved (rSB) in 187 innings at the dish.
A more pointed breakdown of Sanchez’s rocket to second base comes from MLB.com’s Daren Willman:
Sure, it’s still a few ticks down from the 87.8 m.p.h. bullets he was firing back in August, but he’s got more than enough speed to quell any sizable threat on the basepaths.