Detroit Tigers: Is Anibal Sanchez done in Detroit?
By Matt Snyder
Detroit Tigers pitcher Anibal Sanchez accepted a demotion to the minor leagues this week. Will we ever see him back with the major league club?
The Detroit Tigers got a present from Anibal Sanchez this week when the veteran pitcher accepted an assignment to the minor leagues. Sanchez wasn’t performing at the major league level, but the move allows the Tigers to free up his roster spot without having to cut him.
Now the natural question is: will we ever see Sanchez in a Tigers uniform again?
Evan Woodbery of MLive wrote about Sanchez’s first outing in AAA on Tuesday night. In the article Brad Ausmus leaves the door open for Sanchez to return to the big league club, but he doesn’t sound entirely hopeful.
"“I don’t know what the end game is because we just don’t know what’s going to happen,” Ausmus said. “If he goes down there and pitches well and there’s an opening at the Major League level, that might be the end game. It’s dependent on how he does and how our starters do here. There’s nothing etched in stone. We’re going to see if this is a route to get him back.”"
It doesn’t sound like the Tigers have given Sanchez any guarantees of a future return, nor do they sound particularly anxious to have him back. Sanchez will need to show — over a significant stretch of time — that he’s back to some manner of reliability before the Tigers would consider him a viable option.
Sanchez’s bane this season (and the last two seasons) has been an elevated home run rate. This year it rose to an insane rate of 3.8 per nine innings. The league average rate is less than a third of that. He’s managed to maintain a strong strikeout rate — opposing batters are still swinging and missing with regularity — but the ball is going a long, long way when they make contact.
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Sanchez’s first start in AAA didn’t help matters as he allowed two home runs in his 2+ innings of work. He’ll need time to rebuild his arm strength (and confidence) as a starter, but he’s not going to be back unless he can start keeping balls in the yard.