Why Yankees got rid of Gary Sanchez, who is thriving years later with Brewers originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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For a stretch of time, it looked like Gary Sanchez would be Aaron Judge’s slugger buddy for a decade or more.
Instead, though, the New York Yankees moved on from Sanchez four years ago. Judge is still doing his thing, but Sanchez has bounced around before landing with the Milwaukee Brewers.
So far this season, Sanchez is thriving. He’s got an OPS above 1.300 in the very early going.
Sanchez is playing some DH, some catcher and some first base. The Brewers have standout catcher William Contreras doing most of the work behind the plate.
The most relevant part of Sanchez to Milwaukee is his bat.
The Yankees once believed greatly in that swing, but they eventually let him go.
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Why did the Yankees get rid of Gary Sanchez?
The Yankees traded Sanchez to the Minnesota Twins in March 2022 as part of a blockbuster deal.
Both Sanchez and Gio Urshela went to Minnesota in a trade that brought back Josh Donaldson, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Ben Rortvedt from the Twins.
Clearly, part of the deal was for the Yanks to get Donaldson and IKF coming back their way.
Really, though, the Yankees seemed to decide it was time to look in a different direction after a season in which Sanchez hit .204 with a .307 on-base percentage and .423 slugging average.
Sanchez had just turned 29 years old before the deal, so he still had some prime years ahead of him, it seemed.
His OPS in 2020 and 2021 was a lot lower than it had been in his standout seasons of 2016, 2017 and 2019, though.
That was coupled with an increasing frustration in New York with Sanchez’s catching. He had a great arm, but there were moments when he seemed a bit lazy back there. He did three times lead the AL in errors, so that’s definitely not good.
Since the trade to Minnesota, Sanchez has played for those Twins, then the Mets, Padres, Brewers, Orioles and now Brewers again.
It’s been a journey, but the bat definitely still plays.
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