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Players on the Yankees’ big league squad aren’t the only ones receiving attention as this year’s trade deadline draws near. According to George King of the New York Post, the Chicago White Sox inquired about the availability of catching prospect Gary Sanchez on Wednesday.
The discussion never went anywhere, however, as the price for Sanchez was said to be “far too high” for Chicago’s liking. It makes sense that the Yankees would be asking a lot for one of their top prospects that they have no real incentive to trade unless they get a great deal in return. Couple that with the fact that Brian McCann’s name was mentioned in trade rumors earlier this week and it makes more sense for the team to hold on to Sanchez.
Chicago is looking for a catcher on the market after Alex Avila hit the disabled list with a hamstring injury. As of right now, Sanchez’s path to the majors is blocked by McCann on a high dollar deal, so it makes sense that teams in search of catching help would ask about the availability of Sanchez.
Sanchez is currently batting .281/.321/.487 with nine home runs for the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. His strong season is a follow-up to the impressive 2015 season he had. Sanchez will also be the Yankees’ lone representative at this month’s All-Star Futures game in San Diego.
The Yankees are in a position where they don’t need to trade their top prospects in order to acquire big league talent that can help them reach the postseason. This gives them the chance to be the ones who try and work out some overwhelming deal in their favor if another team is willing to overpay, or feel just fine about keeping their minor league players right where they are.
Sanchez’s future with the team might heavily depend on what becomes of McCann. If McCann is traded as part of a fire sale to rebuild, Sanchez becomes highly important for a team trying to reconstruct their big league roster. Should McCann stay on the team, however, Sanchez would probably be stuck as the Triple-A catcher unless a DH spot at the big league level opened up.
Whatever the Yankees decide to do, they don’t have to worry about making any bad deals at the trade deadline. They can hold out for maximum return on anything they decide to sell, and that’s a great position to be in.