TONY
SANCHEZ
5/20/88; '09 1st; Boston College
R/R;
6-0, 215
| Level |
BA |
OBP |
SA |
AB |
2B |
3B |
HR |
BB |
K |
SB |
CS |
| 2007 NCAA |
.318 |
.402 |
.425 |
179 |
16 |
0 |
1 |
15 |
21 |
2 |
2 |
| 2008 NCAA |
.313 |
.394 |
.517 |
211 |
14 |
1 |
9 |
13 |
45 |
1 |
0 |
| 2009 NCAA |
.346 |
.443 |
.614 |
228 |
19 |
0 |
14 |
30 |
40 |
1 |
4 |
| 2009 A+ |
.200 |
.385 |
.400 |
10 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
4 |
0 |
0 |
| 2009 A |
.316 |
.415 |
.561 |
155 |
15 |
1 |
7 |
21 |
34 |
1 |
0 |
| 2009 A- |
.308 |
.357 |
.385 |
13 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
The Pirates
created some controversy by selecting Sanchez with the fourth pick in the 2009
draft. Baseball America, as well as most other observers, regarded Sanchez as
roughly a supplemental first round talent, but once Stephen Strasburg and Dustin
Ackley were off the board, the Pirates did not believe the other most highly
rated prospects were worth the money it would take to sign them. The team may
also have been influenced by the fact that all of the remaining top candidates
were pitchers. They could therefore have ended up spending $5-6M on a player who
lacked a high ceiling and faced the astronomically high failure rate that's
historically plagued pitchers taken in the first few slots in the draft. They
had a pre-draft deal worked out with Sanchez and he signed three days after
being selected for $2.5M, which was slightly above slot money (although slot
recommendations for the first 5-10 rounds have become meaningless in recent
years).
Sanchez didn't emerge as a top draft prospect until his junior
year. He was overweight when he got to Boston College, which accounted for the
lack of interest in him as a high school prospect. He eventually got his weight
down, however, and had a breakout junior season. He's widely considered to be
good defensively, with a slightly above average arm. His bat, however, has
raised doubts. He supposedly struggled badly with breaking balls in college,
although he tried to lay off pitches out of the strike zone. His ceiling is
probably something like .250-60 with 15 or so HRs, and he could end up as a
backup.
Although a certain element of the team's fan base will blindly
and reflexively dismiss the Sanchez choice as the team being cheap, the reality
is more complicated. The Pirates said they would not cut their draft budget,
which in 2008 was the fourth highest ever in MLB. In the later rounds of the
2009 draft, they selected a large number of players, mainly pitchers, who
figured to require above-slot money to sign. They then signed a number of those
players, in part using the money they saved on Sanchez. Considering that their
farm system was still desperately short of pitching talent, and considering the
extremely high attrition rate with pitching prospects, it probably made more
sense to sign a number of prospects with good arms instead of simply signing one
pitcher like Aaron Crow or Kyle Gibson. Thanks to the disastrous reign of former
GM Dave Littlefield, the talent level in the organization remained among the
lowest in baseball going into 2009. Current management is sensibly trying to use
the peculiar nature of the baseball draft—with talented players often falling to
later rounds due to monetary concerns and college commitments—to add talent
beyond what it could add by mechanically following a "conventional" draft
strategy. What remains to be seen is whether the execution is good. The Sanchez
pick, for example, is subject to the criticism that there were other available
hitters of similar stature—that is, hitters who were regarded as late first
round or supplemental first round talents—who had higher ceilings. Of course,
the team's lack of catching prospects may have played a role, too.
In any
event, the Pirates had the luxury of getting Sanchez a significant amount of
playing time right after he signed. After a short stint with State College, he
spent about six weeks with West Virginia. His hitting there has to be taken with
the caveat that Sanchez was a top player from a Division I school playing at the
lowest full season level. Still, Sanchez hit for average and power, and did not
show the supposedly major problems with offspeed stuff. It just remains to be
seen whether he can continue that success at higher levels. Defensively, he
impressed the Pirates, although he had a very high error total of nine. He threw
out 30% of base stealers. At the end of the season, the Pirates moved him up to
Lynchburg so he could play in the playoffs. He'll probably open 2010 at the new
location of the Pirates' high A affiliate in Bradenton, but the team has not
ruled out the possibility of him opening at Altoona.
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