Yankees prospect Gary Sanchez disciplined at Double-A

Yankees catching prospect Gary Sanchez, who ranked 35th on Baseball America’s annual list heading into this season, has been benched at Double-A for repeated disciplinary reasons.

Nick Peruffo of the Trentonian reports that Sanchez sat out a second straight game Thursday and afterward had a closed-door meeting with Double-A manager Tony Franklin.

Franklin declined to reveal any specifics, but here’s what he did say:

It was disciplinary action. I needed to take care of that today, to get things clarified and cleared up. I’m not going to tell you what it was, but it was a violation of some of our guidelines and I needed to take care of it. Gary is out of there for a couple of days until we decide he deserves to play again, plain and simple.

Sanchez is considered one of the elite catching prospects in baseball, but with the Yankees his path to the majors is blocked by the team signing Brian McCann to a five-year, $85 million contract this offseason. He also hasn’t been particularly impressive at Double-A, hitting .252 with seven homers and a .741 OPS in 53 games, although that’s a lot more impressive than it looks when you consider Sanchez is one of the league’s youngest players at age 21.
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