Retro Week continues: Super Prospect Gary Sanchez looks forward to big development in 2014!

This hurts, especially as we rev up our hopes for the rookies - our only true salvation. If they fail, there won't be enough Martin Prados and Chris Capuanos out there to rescue to team at the trade deadline. But last February, we were licking this garbage straight from the Yankee trowel. 

LAKELAND, Fla. -- Gary Sanchez, the Yankees' top prospect, was at his home in the Dominican Republic when he saw on TV that Brian McCann had agreed to a five-year, $85 million contract, immediately answering a need behind the plate for the big league squad.

Just a few weeks away from celebrating his 21st birthday, Sanchez said that he did not panic. That decision was out of his control, and Sanchez said that his response would be to stay focused on his own game.

"I never thought of it as any sort of danger or anything to my own future with the team," Sanchez said through an interpreter. "I never saw that."

Rated as the Yankees' No. 1 overall prospect by MLB.com, Sanchez launched a solo home run in New York's 7-4 win over the Tigers on Friday, offering a reminder of the raw power that prompted the Yankees to give him a $3 million signing bonus in 2009...

Sanchez hit 15 home runs last season, playing 94 games at Class A Tampa and 23 more at Double-A Trenton, where he is likely to begin the 2014 campaign. Overall, Sanchez batted .253 with a .324 on-base percentage and a .412 slugging percentage, and said that he has been trying to polish himself behind the plate.

"I've been working a lot on blocking and throwing and catching balls," Sanchez said. "Every aspect of my defense, I think, could be improved."

I don't mean to snark the MLB mind-bending machinery, which is as old as the natives who told Ponce de Leon to head for the alligators. A rookie comes up, or a veteran returns, and we all wax about how great everything is going to be, and that's how we survive the bitterness of February. But the record on Sanchez now stands at this: 

He's been dropped from his once lofty position atop the Yankee prospect lists, with some "experts" saying he's the next Jesus Montero, (which, by the way, you never want somebody saying about you.) The reason? He didn't work hard enough on blocking and catching balls last year, as per his vow. He was tied for the Eastern League lead in passed balls. Moreover, he was suspended from the team for five games for some unreported infraction. Sanchez hit .270 with only 13 HRs at Trenton. I think he caught Chris Christie Disease during his pass through the capital, aka, the "Turning Point of the American Revolution" city. Oh well...