page_title: Gary Sánchez
section_title: 2016
hierarchical_section_title: Gary Sánchez / Professional career / New York Yankees / 2016
caption_attribution_description: Gary Sánchez
context_page_description: Gary Sánchez, is a Dominican professional baseball catcher for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball. He made his MLB debut with the Yankees in 2015. He was named the American League's Rookie of the Month and Player of the Month for August 2016. Sánchez burst onto the scene with a record-breaking rookie debut in 2016, finishing second in Rookie of the Year voting despite playing in only 53 games. He was named an All-Star and Silver Slugger in 2017. Sánchez is the fastest catcher in MLB history to hit 100 home runs.
context_section_description: Sánchez competed with Austin Romine to serve as the backup catcher to Brian McCann on the Yankees' Opening Day roster in 2016, but he began the season with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. He was called up to the majors for one game in May, where he went 0-for-4. The Yankees again promoted Sánchez to the major leagues on August 3, and he recorded his first major league hit, a single off Hansel Robles, that same day. On August 10, Sánchez went 4-for-5, with his first major league home run and 3 singles. On August 16, Sánchez had his first two home run game against the Toronto Blue Jays. On August 22, Sánchez was named AL Player of the Week, after hitting four home runs with a .523 average. Sánchez became the first player in MLB history with at least 11 home runs and 31 hits in his first 23 career games. On August 29, Sánchez was named AL Player of the Week for the second straight week, and on September 3 MLB named him AL Player of the Month and Rookie of the Month. On September 21, Sánchez hit his 18th and 19th 
  home runs in his 45th game, making him the fastest player to reach 19 home runs in the modern era.
  For the 2016 season, Sánchez played in 53 games for the Yankees with a .299 batting average, 20 home runs, and 42 RBIs. On defense, in 2016 he had the best average pop time to second base (1.90 seconds) of all major league catchers. He finished second in the voting for AL Rookie of the Year, behind Michael Fulmer.
caption: Sánchez in August 2016
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