Pretty simple four words of advice in the title, but to Nick Swisher, it really is just about blocking out the noise and focusing on the task at hand for Gary Sanchez.
“My advice: don’t listen to anything, don’t read anything, just get back to being Gary Sanchez,” Swisher told Moose & Maggie on Monday. “Don’t worry about what people say, just continue to stick to the grind and the process, because if you do, the results will come.”
Sanchez has been much-maligned over the last couple years for many reasons, most recently the optics of saying he didn’t understand his postseason benching in 2020 after hitting .147. But, Swisher says, perhaps the struggles offensively were just a manifestation of all going on behind the scenes.
“When you play in New York, you’re under a microscope, no doubt, and if you don’t put up the numbers, people will be all over you,” Swisher said. “But Gary hit what, 33 homers his rookie year? He has it inside him, but look at all he has gone through – he’s had a bunch of different catching coaches and tried a lot of different things, but he has been doing everything he can to be the best catcher he can be.”
And Swisher believes that once the bat comes back around, Sanchez will be seen in a much better light…but he has the potential to be one of the most complete catchers in baseball, all the warts be damned.
“Once he gets that bat back to where he knows it can be, no one has a problem,” Swisher said. “It’s hard to find a dual threat catcher in the game today – maybe JT Realmuto could be that, but Gary can, too. Remember when he came up and he was hitting homers and throwing guys out left and right? We know he has it in there, and that’s what we want him to bring out.”
Listen to Swisher’s entire segment on Moose & Maggie, including thoughts on Corey Kluber, Trevor Bauer, his future in the game, and more below!
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