It could happen, but it won’t. Instead, Sanchez will show himself to be an enormously talented and valuable young player rather than a universe-consuming behemoth who has chosen baseball and his preferred method of toying with mere mortals.

Probably.

One of the reasons we can be confident about this outcome is that at the end of last season Sanchez, however briefly, looked more like a member of our species. He slowed down significantly in the finishing stretch and appeared to be a hitter capable of struggling.

Between September 17 and September 21 Sanchez hit five home runs and was in full kaiju mode. However, before we as a society decided to send massive robots to kill him — that needed to be piloted by two people with a mind connection for reasons that were never properly explained — he fell back to earth.

From Sept. 22 to the end of the season Sanchez was objectively bad. He hit .114/.220/.229 with a single home run and struck out 31.7 percent of the time. It was a stretch of just 41 plate appearances that signifies virtually nothing, but it was the first time we’ve seen the bad version of Sanchez and it’s worth taking a gander at what that looks like.

When Gary was in the midst of his poor to the finish he  had some bad luck with a .136 BABIP, but the poor fortune was of his own creation. Sanchez hit 60.9 percent ground balls and pulled them at a 71.4% rate for a grand total of zero hits. It’s no secret that the best way to keep a slugger who doesn’t run well from hurting you is to have them put it on the ground, but it will be interesting to see what other teams do when it comes to shifting the Yankees catcher over the course of a full season.

Interestingly, while Sanchez was struggling at keeping the ball off the ground he was constantly swinging at high pitches. Here’s what his swing% zone profile looked like during his dark conclusion to the 2016 season:

When it came to actually missing pitches, high-and-outside seemed to be the problematic location:

The sample is silly small, but if I’m an opposing team it might be enough for me to experiment with increased fastball elevation and staying away. After all, there isn’t exactly a well-established winning strategy when it comes to retiring Sanchez.

At the end of the day the brief look in on Sanchez’s worst at-bats doesn’t reveal anything to surprising or profound. When he’s not rolling he bangs too many ground balls to the left side of the infield and swings for questionable pitches up. The same could be said for a lot of right-handed sluggers.

The point is that we know that he can struggle, which is important when in order to relate to him as a man, but also to temper expectations to some degree. “Bad” Gary Sanchez exists, even if we’ve only seen a glimpse of him so far. Next year we might see a month of him, or even too.

That’s OK because that’s how baseball works and that’s part of what makes the game fun. If Sanchez hit 1.000/1.000/4.000 it would cease to be enjoyable. That said, there’s plenty of wiggle room between that and even historical greatness. Last year was damned fun.

Next year watching Sanchez hit figures to be enjoyable too, but it won’t always be. Sometimes he’ll look like he’s trying to do too much. Sometimes he’ll hit into agonizing double plays.

At the end of the day if you don’t love Gary Sanchez at his worst, you don’t deserve him at his best.

Photo: Kim Klement / USA Today Sports

It’s a valid expectation, but at the same time, we need to recall the purpose of language. Whenever one puts pen to paper the end goal is to convey meaning to another person, or a number of people. No matter how impressive your vocabulary is, or how ingenious your thoughts are, if your message is not understood you have failed.

As a result, platitudes are actually very effective writing tools, in a sense. They may be stale and unoriginal, but they are also easily understood and convey a particular meaning with clarity.

If I were to say something like, “Rob Refsnyder, always the bridesmaid, never the bride” I would deserve 0 points for writing prowess, but we have moved the conversation forward quickly because you know what I’m getting at, or the gist of it.

Refsnyder always seemed destined to be a folk hero for Yankees fans. He’s not particularly physically imposing, he doesn’t have a lot of power, prospect guys never loved him and he’s a bit old for someone trying to get a foothold in the major leagues as he turns 26 prior to next season.

Despite those flaws the second baseman-turned-outfielder continually put up outstanding stats in the minors that made box-score scouts drool. When he got his first shot in 2015, he put up a tidy .302/.348/.512 line in 16 games. So, how did his road to being an average player who is disproportionately liked get derailed?

Well, at the end of the 2015 season there was a thing that happened called Greg Bird. Bird fever (Bird flu?) swept Yankees nation as the big first baseman looked like a middle-of-the-order presence the minute he arrived in the major leagues. It seemed clear that he was the new toast of the town and Refsynder had been relegated to second-tier youngster of note.

Then when all seemed lost, Bird tore a labrum in his right shoulder putting him on the disabled list for the duration of 2016. That opened the door once again for Refsnyder. While Starlin Castro had taken the second-base job, there was some outfield and first base playing time available early in the summer when the Yankees appeared to be another old and relatively uninteresting bunch.

That was Refsnyder’s window. He could have come in, put together some solid at-bats and endeared a Yankees faithful looking for a reason to cheer. Instead, the Korean-born rookie put together an uninspiring .250/.328/.309 line and lost his chance to be a pinstripe favorite.

In August, Gary Sanchez arrived. At the deadline, the Yankees made trades that put them in position for a full-on Youthquake in the years to come. Aaron Judge is a guy with galvanizing talent. For this point on, there are too many positive things going on for the Bronx Bombers for the average fan to concern him or herself with a plucky underdog with good Triple-A numbers and defensive uncertainty.

Refsnyder was coming up at the perfect time when any young talent would have been lionized by a fanbase unused to delayed gratification finally looking to the future. He would have meant very little during better seasons, but his lean-years folk hero potential was undeniable. Now, it’s too late. He’s been overshadowed by Sanchez and Bird and the wave of talent on the horizon.

That doesn’t mean he won’t contribute to the Yankees success going forward as a role player. That was his most likely scenario as a prospect and he certainly looks capable of doing that now. He just won’t be more than that Yankees fans.

He won’t get to be the bride.

Photo: Kim Klement/USA Today Sports

Hockey, football and basketball are played in more restrictive and uniform spaces. You’re less likely to see a hockey player do something you’ve ever seen before because there are only so many ways to fill a space that with the exact same dimensions in every city. Having a clock is also limits what’s possible because there simply isn’t time for miraculous comebacks, and it also imposes a certain rhythm on the games.

With its massive and irregular ballparks and complete disregard for the fourth dimension, baseball invites bizarre and unpredictable happenings. A ball might collide off an outfielder’s head and over the wall in one ballpark, but in another, it remains in play and is forgotten by history. There is no such thing a ninth-inning lead that cannot be erased, even in an era where relievers throw smoke condensed into a solid sphere.

This is one of the fundamentally charming things about baseball, and in 2016 Yankees rookie Luis Cessa did his part to ruin it. Normally, first-year pitchers add to the air of unpredictability that surrounds the game because they are unknowns of sorts and there tends to be a lot of variability in their performance.

A pitcher seeing his first big-league action can thrive off hitters’ lack of familiarity with him and blow them away, or he can be utterly clobbered and exposed as a fraud. Last year, Cessa refused to be either of those things. Ever.

The 24-year-old made nine starts for the Yankees in 2016 and every single one of them was virtually identical. He never threw less than five innings or more than six. In eight of those starts, he gave up five or six hits and between two and four runs. Other than his first start, (6 IP, 0 ER, 1 BB, 5 K) every other outing can accurately be described as “meh”.

Last season 198 pitchers made at least nine starts like Cessa did. His worst Game Score (44) was the highest in baseball. In other words, if you start even a handful of games you’ll probably get shelled once, but the worst the young Yankees starter did was slightly below average.

On the flip side, Cessa’s best Game Score of the year was 70 and 164 pitchers managed a start better. The difference between the two (26) was the fourth-lowest among the initial group of 198.

These numbers give the impression that Cessa is an immensely boring pitcher, which he isn’t. The young right-hander throws hard and has an interesting slider that looks like this:

He may look more like an innings-eater than a potential star, but he’s held his own at the highest level and has been a part of major trades involving Yoenis Cespedes and Justin Wilson. He also wears the number 85 for some reason, which is bizarre enough to disqualify him from unofficial Steve Trachsel award for the most boring pitcher in baseball.

Next year it’s hard to know what Cessa’s role with the Yankees will be, but it’s probably fair to say his days of sucking the enjoyment out of baseball are over. At some point, he’s going to have a truly awesome or truly awful start.

If there’s one thing we can predict about Cessa’s future it’s that he can’t stay predictable for long. In baseball, no one can.

Photo: Kim Klement / USA Today Sports

Despite having put together absolutely ridiculous seasons in 2014 and 2015 he set personal bests in K%, K-BB%, ground ball percentage, infield fly percentage and fastball velocity. In most cases, that makes for a career season, but that’s not how the big right-hander’s campaign will likely be remembered.

Instead, it’s likely that his 3.08 ERA will suggest that things weren’t quite right. Normally a 3.08 ERA is not particularly notable for a reliever. It’s above-average but not truly spectacular, and ERA is far from the best metric to evaluate bullpen arms.

Betances’s case is a little different because he posted a 1.45 ERA in 174 innings between 2014 and 2015. We shouldn’t necessarily judge relievers on the number of runs they give up, but when they start giving up more than twice as many runs it seems fair to take notice.

The list of statistics he set career highs in above suggests that his peripherals not only not the problem, they were absolutely outstanding. Where things got problematic were on balls in play. After allowing a .248 BABIP the previous two years his BABIP surged up to .353 in 2016.

That number moved without a significant jump in line-drive rate, the aforementioned spike in pop-ups and an exit velocity chart that doesn’t look particularly alarming.

What did happen is that Betances got very little luck with his shifts. When his defence warped itself specifically for the purpose of turning more balls in play into outs, the result was a .397 BABIP.

Since the shift was conceived pitchers have been skeptical of them because it’s usually easier to see the hits they concede than the ones they steal, but in this case, the 28-year-old may have a legitimate gripe.

At 63 balls in play, the sample size is small, but large enough to severely change the shape of a reliever’s season. Random variation the easiest answer, and it may well be the correct one. On the other hand, the kind of pitcher Betances is invites other explanations as well.

Because the right-hander is so dominating it’s possible that hitters are willing to try beating the shift as opposed to beating the pitcher. When your chances aren’t good to begin with it’s more tempting to go for the “easy” hit with an opposite-field bunt or squibber as opposed to hoping to drive something hard through the shift. It would be interesting if the opponent’s base confidence level against Betances fundamentally changed their approach.

Unfortunately, the numbers don’t support this notion. When the shift was on hitters actually went to the opposite field less frequently (23.8% of the time) than they did in other instances (31.6%). His soft contact rate was also lower with the shift on (23.8%) than otherwise (29.0%) suggesting opponents were gripping it and ripping it rather than poking it where the fielders weren’t. The only piece of contrary evidence is that the three bunt attempts against Betances came with the shift on, which is very little to go on.

Ultimately, based on last season the Yankees anti-shift club should probably include its closer as well as its manager. However, in both cases, the stance is based on luck and personal experience rather than anything wrong with the concept itself.

Photo: Kevin Sousa/USA Today Sports

When the New York Yankees acquired Butler, some ears certainly perked up. The Yankees needed some help against left-handed pitching and here was this relatively well-known gentleman who might be able to help. So they picked him up and it cost very little. No risk, and a potentially great reward.

The problem is that there’s also no good reason to believe Butler can help the Yankees win baseball games. His unorthodox body shape would make one inclined to trust in his ability to hit baseballs a long way, but he really can’t do that with any consistency. This is a snapshot of Butler’s last three seasons with the bat:

He’s not just bad (the worst qualified player over this period according to FanGraphs, in fact) he’s bad in the exact same damn way every year. His hitting is uninspired and the girth that made him famous makes him awful in every other aspect of the game.

Butler is a known quantity, but that shouldn’t be that valuable for a team with dozens of scouts and analytics experts who are supposed to be in the business of unearthing previously unknown talent. There aren’t a bunch of players ready to contribute at the major-league level just floating around in the ether, but there’s got to be something more appealing than a man named after a rural morning nosh.

Instead, the Yankees have made quite literally the least interesting move of our time. They have put less thought into a player acquisition than it takes most people to navigate a food court. The Bronx needed a guy, Butler is a guy, Butler was available, and the Yankees got Butler.

Now, at this moment it would be fair to say, “Hey, Butler wasn’t signed to be good, he was signed to hit lefties.” That’s a fine point and your ability and willingness to think critically is greatly appreciated. Here’s the issue: Butler probably can’t hit lefties any better than he hits righties right now.

Over the last two seasons, he’s hit .232/.331/.374 against southpaws. That’s not nearly good enough to be employed for the purpose of lefty bashing. He’s been better in the past, but he also used to be an above-average hitter overall so that isn’t immensely surprising.

Butler has earned himself some goodwill with a pinch-hit home run in his second game as a Yankee on Friday and perhaps he’ll have a productive few weeks in pinstripes. However, that will remain beside the point. Anyone can have a decent couple of weeks. Not you or I in all likelihood, but anyone who is a viable candidate to appear on a major-league roster.

Contrary to popular belief familiarity breeds affection far more often than it breeds contempt. Being around something makes you more inclined to like it more over time. That’s the basic reasoning behind Billy Crystal’s idea that men and women can’t be friends from When Harry Met Sally, or the far less elegant, but perhaps more relevant, “Mermaid Theory” from How I Met Your Mother.

Butler has been around long enough that the baseball world has justified his continued existence by cognitive dissonance. He’s played 10 years, banked over $52 million and appeared in over 1,400 games, so he must have value.

Except he doesn’t. He’s not even a warm-and-fuzzy team-building guy for the clubhouse. Instead, he’s the kind of guy who apparently tries to put the kybosh on a teammate’s endorsement deal for no apparent person gain.

For the next little while, Billy Butler is going to be a Yankee. He’s a name, but at this point he isn’t really anything else.

Photo: Bob DeChiara / USA Today Sports

This is a question that has been asked consistently by mankind’s greatest leaders. It’s an exceedingly difficult dilemma. One that has never been adequately resolved, although the “rule by fear” camp has a pretty poor record on a few things; human rights for instance.

Baseball players do not have to deal with this eternal quandary. Being loved is worth very little on a baseball diamond. On the other hand, being feared can be awfully handy. That’s something Gary Sanchez is finding out right now.

There’s no need to recap Sanchez’s early-career exploits except to say they are grander than the best case scenario envisioned by even the most intoxicated of Yankees fans.  His OPS is closer to 1.400 than it is to the major-league average of .740. The things he’s doing at the plate are downright silly and probably shouldn’t be allowed.

Unsurprisingly, pitchers have noticed. They’ve decided, as a group, that they would rather not keep conceding home runs to Sanchez and they’ve adjusted. It’s the nature of this adjustment that shows that the Yankees catcher is haunting their nightmares.

When hitters first show up in the major leagues, pitchers rather reliably go with a single strategy to welcome them to the highest level of the game: they throw fastballs. If a player can’t hit a fastball there’s very little incentive for pitchers leaning too much on their secondary stuff which can be harder to command and harder on their arms. If you want to have a long MLB career you need to prove you can catch up to the heat.

Sanchez, less than 200 plate appearances into his career, is forcing him opponents to go the other way entirely. Out of 377 hitters with at least 150 trips to the dish, the 23-year-old has seen the lowest percentage of fastballs in the game at 45.6 percent.

Fastball percentage doesn’t tell the whole story, but as a metric of general pitcher fear, it’s not bad. For instance, the league leader in fastballs seen is Ben Revere, sitting at 70 percent. There is quite literally no man in baseball who inspires less terror with his power. Next on the list is A.J. Ellis. The only distress he’s created recently is the breaking of Clayton Kershaw’s heart when he headed to Philadelphia.

Not only are pitchers feeding Sanchez a heavy diet of offspeed and breaking pitches, they are also keeping those offerings away from the strike zone if at all possible. Among the same sample of 377 hitters, his percentage of pitches in the zone seen is the 10th lowest at 39.7% just below Pedro Alvarez, Corey Dickerson, Jose Abreu and Giancarlo Stanton. Some of the players in his stratosphere simply have awful discipline, but they are mainly top-notch sluggers.

The pitches Sanchez has seen look like this:

This chart’s low-and-away tendency is unsurprising considering all the breaking pitches.

Sanchez needs to be careful. Being consistently pitched around can lead to walks and favorable counts, but discipline has never been his calling card and as pitchers stay away from him he’ll need to holster his bat to take advantage.

Pitchers have seen the glory that is Gary Sanchez and trembled with fear. The way they’re pitching him confirms it. The next step is converting raw terror into production.

Photo: Adam Hunger / USA Today Sports

Things didn’t necessarily look so bright prior to this season. Aroldis Chapman and Andrew Miller hadn’t been converted into promising raw materials and Sanchez hadn’t happened yet. When 2016 started one of the best things the Yankees had going for them was a middle infield that could be locked in for seasons to come.

Didi Gregorius and Starlin Castro looked like potential fixtures on a team full of veterans holding their spots until reinforcements could arrive. Gregorius was coming off a strong 2015 where he was a good glove-first starting shortstop and Castro looked like a great bounce-back candidate with the potential to take a step forward with a change of scenery and a less demanding position to man.

Nothing has really happened since to change the big picture in a profound way. Castro has disappointed slightly, but it’s easy to imagine this pair of 26-year-old infielders being a part of the Yankees future plans. What’s surprising is not how much value the pair has contributed but rather the shape of their production, especially lately.

In the second half of the season, the pair has gone full Rougned Odor. Now that’s not a “thing” per se, but one can infer the meaning. Right now Odor has made a name for himself with an unusual offensive profile that consists primarily of hitting a bunch of home runs and never, ever, ever walking. As Michael Baumann noted in his latest column for The Ringer, the Texas Rangers second baseman is the first player in baseball history to hit 30 home runs in a season and walk less than 3 percent of the time.

Neither Castro nor Gregorius can claim that kind of accomplishment, but their second halves have looked distinctly Odor-ian.

Very few teams are getting this kind of power production from their middle infielders, but there seems to be a cost here in terms of strikeouts and even fewer walks for a duo not known for their patience.

Castro had himself a tidy August, but it’s worth wondering if this approach is the best way for either of these hitters to go. Gregorius has broken out offensively this year, but perhaps he’s hitting a wall where trying to hard to hit for power becomes and issue. Castro was known as a hit accumulator before 2016 and that might the best way forward for him. It’s tantalizing to watch middle infielders approaching their offensive prime start to blossom as power hitters, but a balance needs to be struck and the potential for imbalance looks strong here.

There’s a reason why there’s only one Odor. His style doesn’t seem to make sense, yet it’s clearly working. Because he’s so unorthodox it’s harder to imagine what kind of staying power he has with that approach, but for now, it’s both fascinating and effective. Even so, he might not be the best role model.

Being Rougned Odor certainly works for Rougned Odor, but the jury’s out on whether it works for Starling Castro and Didi Gregorius.

Photo credit: Thomas B. Shea / USA TODAY Sports

You might feel more polite noticing something else about him, perhaps something more reflective of his character, but a 6-foot-7 275-pound human being has a physical presence that just draws the eyes. From an evolutionary point of view, it’s important to know when apex predators are about and Judge has the look of an apex predator.

Size in and of itself is not particularly valuable in baseball, although it tends to come with strength, which can be converted into home runs. It’s overly simplifying matters to say that Judge hits home runs because he’s big, but it’s also not wildly inaccurate. So far the 24-year-old has already jogged around the bases twice at the major-league level and being a gargantuan specimen has undoubtedly played a role.

Unfortunately for Judge, raw power is not the only thing his size affects in his profession. By virtue of his stature, he also has an awfully large strike zone to work with. If he is properly proportioned he should have the reach to cover it, but an above-average strikeout rate is probably inevitable.

In his minor-league career the Yankees rookie never struck out less than 20 percent of the time and he’s done so at a 38 percent clip in his brief stint in the majors. The issue his size creates is twofold.

Pitches low in the zone are farther away from his eyeballs and hands -essential tools for hitting- than they would be for most hitters. Identifying and swinging for pitches on at the bottom of the zone may be trickier for him, as a result and he might wind up easier to freeze there than most.

He’s already been victimized this way by both Wade LeBlanc of the Seattle Mariners and Mike Pelfrey of the Detroit Tigers and taken five looking strikeouts in his first 13 games.

More important is what happens when Judge swings the bat. The major-league sample on the young slugger is absurdly small, but his first 50 plate appearance may contain a clue as how his unique strike zone may play at the highest level.

Because the “Aaron Judge Strike Zone” is so large, pitches outside of it are very difficult to hit. The offerings below are tough for Judge to reach, and the ones above are ludicrously high and may benefit from an effective velocity boost. The Yankees outfielder needs to stay within the zone to succeed, something his contact numbers bear out.

Once again, it’s too early to assume this is what we can expect forever. Instead, this is probably an significantly exaggerated version of what it’s fair to project. However, based on what we know about Judge it’s likely fair to say he needs to stay within the zone, probably moreso than his peers. So far he’s swinging outside the zone at approximately a league-average rate and to be the kind of weapon he has the potential to be that number needs to come down.

Aaron Judge’s gifts of enormity and the ability to exert immense force come at a price. The downside out in the open for all to see is that it limits what he can do with his legs. Judge is athletic, but his 275-pound frame ensures he’s never be the Maury Wills of his era on the bases and he won’t play a premium defensive position.

The more subtle handicap is the massive strike zone he has to protect. With nothing but a measly wooden stick he has quite the domain to protect. That job is tough enough that he simply can’t afford to go outside the his zone, no matter how much pitchers want to lead him there.

Photo: Adam Hunger / USA Today Sports

The 26-year-old is an above-average offensive contributor for the first time of career, thanks in large part to a power spike few would have predicted. Not only has his performance improved, underlying numbers suggest that it’s no mere BABIP blip or some such event. Here at BP Bronx Jesse Lippin-Foster even penned a piece on the subject entitled “Why Didi Gregorius’s success is sustainable”.

Right now, the New York Yankees have a young shortstop who is a plus offensive contributor on their hands. That’s a rare and impressive thing. Unfortunately for the Bombers, simply being a shortstop is not enough. Fairly unsurprisingly, it is rather important to play the position well. This is where Gregorius is running into some trouble in 2016.

No matter whose metrics you prefer there is strong agreement that Gregorius’s offensive breakout has been mirrored by defensive deterioration.

There are some apples to oranges issues here, FRAA doesn’t include positional adjustment for instance, but the message is clear: Gregorius has been a far less valuable defender this season than last.

Why that’s been the case is harder to say, but there are a few things that stand out. For one, the shortstop has already made a career-high 15 errors. As a defensive statistic errors are overrated in some circles, but they tend to be ignored in others. You need defenders who handle the ball the most to be the most reliable and Gregorius has had more trouble with routine plays than ever.

There is no real rhyme or reason to these mistakes. Fielding errors are more common for Gregorius than throwing errors, which seems odd for a shortstop but isn’t unusual for him. The most amusing gaffe came in April when he and Chase Headley were part of the rarely-seen double bobble.

Beyond the errors, the second component of Gregious’s defensive slide has been worse range numbers. His Range Factor has dropped from 3.92 to 3.75 and he’s lost 9 range runs according to DRS and 3.8 according to UZR.

Comparing his made plays from 2015 to 2016, it appears he did went deeper into the hole last season.

2015

2016

None of this is to say Gregorius has suddenly lost it defensively. Players have poor defensive seasons and bounce back all the time, especially those in their athletic prime. If Gregorius was a noticeably bulked-up 35-year-old having a power breakout, it would be easier to see these defensive issues as a concern going forward. That’s clearly not the case, but what the defensive numbers do show is that his 2016 breakout is something a mirage from a value standpoint.

By FanGraphs, Gregorius led Yankees position players in 2015 with a 3.1 WAR, this year he is their WAR leader once again at 2.3. It’ll be touch-and-go to see if he beats his 2015 number despite his offensive evolution. According to Baseball-Reference, the young shortstop’s 2015 WAR was 3.3 and he’s sitting at 2.0.

What Gregorius has accomplished offensively in 2016 is remarkable considering his previous track record, and his power surge could pay dividends for the Yankees for years to come. There is no denying that. But given his step back defensively, it’s clear that this season shouldn’t go down as the year Gregorius became a star. He still has to put it all together, something that’s fairly likely to happen as soon as 2017.

For a rare Yankees team looking to the future, that timeline works just fine.

Photo: Adam Hunger / USA Today Sports

Most fans don’t watch a great deal of minor-league baseball. This is understandable as major-league baseball is readily available, higher quality and relatively inexpensive to watch from home. The result of this is that young prospects, who are taking on a more and more important role in team-building as salaries skyrocket, aren’t well known to fans in the way big-league players are.

There is a lot of coverage of prospects and scouting reports are all over the internet, but for most fans a young player doesn’t become real to them until they see him step into the box, go through idiosyncratic pre-batting rituals and take his stance. Until that time a prospect is just an idea.

Right now Sanchez, who first appeared on Baseball America‘s top prospect list during Barack Obama’s first term, has been in this stage for quite some time in the psyche of the Yankees’ faithful. Now he’s finally moving past it.

In 2015 the 23-year-old got a couple of at-bats as a pinch hitter, then he got a couple of starts as a designated hitter this year, but last week he finally debuted as a catcher. This is particularly significant because the greatest doubts around Sanchez’s ability to contribute at the game’s highest level have surrounded his glove.

We are three games into his time behind the plate at the major-league level. That’s absurdly early to be making judgments, but it’s never too soon to be making observations.

So far he’s thrown gone 2-for-4 throwing out opposing base runners, nabbing both runners in his debut. It should be noted that both his stolen bases allowed came when catching Dellin Betances, who has allowed 17 base runners to steal on 17 tries.

The throw on his first prevented robbery was sharp, on target and nailed a credible base stealer in Jason Kipnis.

On a more peculiar play Mike Napoli tried to catch him napping on a delayed steal following a strikeout.

Sanchez appears surprised and perhaps a tad rattled and lets off an awful throw, only to be saved by Starlin Castro’s quickness and Mike Napoli’s lack thereof.

The next day, Sanchez has another adventure where he mishandles a pitch from CC Sabathia but recovers in time to cut down Brandon Guyer attempting to advance.

The last two plays turn out well for the Yankees, but they are both caused by initial miscues from Sanchez. On Napoli’s attempted steal, he stands up with the ball looking at in his glove and unintentionally inviting the Indians’slugger to move.

On Guyer’s move to advance, he doesn’t read the pitch well and winds up in a poor single-knee blocking stance leaving plenty of room for the ball to careen away to his left.

With a passed ball as well in that game, it’s the kind of lapse that reinforces fears about the young Yankees’ catcher who once allowed 26 passed balls in 60 games behind the plate in the minors. Those fears are justified to a degree, but Sanchez also suffers from a reputation built when he was a far worse catcher.

Looking at his minor-league numbers it’s clear he has improved significantly from a defensive standpoint in the last three years.

Gary Sanchez has had an up-and-down first three games as a major-league catcher. It’s to early to say much yet, except that there’s certainly room for improvement.

That shouldn’t be a problem for Sanchez, he’s been improving for years.

Photo: Brad Penner / USA Today Sports