Tony Sanchez Heating Up in Indianapolis

Going into the season, I wrote a blog post about the five most important players in the Pirates organization in terms of what the 2012 season. One of those five was Tony Sanchez. I said that based on the premise that the Pirates really don't have anything in their system in terms of big league level catching talent. Rod Barajas is only guy outside of Sanchez with enough talent to be an everyday starter, and he's 37 years old and sure not to be a Pirate past the 2013 season (if he even gets resigned for next year, which is questionable). It was really important for Sanchez to turn into something this year, namely a possible big league starter in 2013.

Sanchez started slow this year but heated up a bit in Altoona which got him a promotion to AAA Indianapolis in June. In his first 17 games for the Indians, he hit .180/.219/.230, much to the dismay of future-minded Pirates fans everywhere. It seemed that he was turning into a bust of a pick and that the Pirates would have to continue searching for a guy that could be their catcher of the future. Obviously nobody gave up on him, but things weren't looking great.

Sanchez has really started stinging the ball in July. For the month he's hitting .326/.404/.717 with all five of his AAA home runs in 14 games. In his last ten games he's hitting .321/.424/.607 with two homers. For the year he's now hitting .243/.302/.439 which looks pretty good after his dismal start to his AAA career.

He's going to have to perform for longer than a couple of weeks to make everybody buy into his status as a future MLB starter, but it's really, really nice to see him hitting right now. Like I said, the Pirates really have nothing in the system in terms of good catching talent, and Sanchez has a lot of pressure on him. He's had some off field issues, but he seems to have put those behind him and may finally be figuring some things out at the plate.

Consistency is important for Sanchez going forward. Since he plays catcher, the number one focus isn't offense. He doesn't have to hit .300, but he does have to be able to not kill his team with the bat. There's little doubt that he'll be able to handle big league pitchers behind the plate eventually, the question is if he can handle that same pitching beside the plate with a bat in his hands. If he can get it together and be more consistent with the bat, he could be a very productive and helpful player for the Pirates as soon as next year. That's huge with the system as thin as it is in terms of backstops.

Keep an eye on Tony Sanchez, he's very, very important to this budding franchise.