Judge and Sanchez to make different adjustments in 2017

In response to Aaron Judge's lackluster debut at the plate, the Yankees believe there's room for improvement and a lot left to be desired. The 24-year-old rookie outfielder, who hit .179 during a two-month major league stint last summer, has recently been working on his swing at Yankee Stadium, with a focus on touching up his balance and plate approach on the front side and lower half. Yankees' hitting coach Alan Cockrell has spent time working with Judge, who was a victim of the strikeout 42 times in 84 total at-bats. “It happens to a lot of young players when they come to the big leagues -- they try and do a little bit more and get away from some of the things that got them here," Cockrell said Thursday. "[With Aaron], we’re just trying to get him in a good position to hit. He’s a big kid, six-foot-eight, so we got to get him down into his legs." Yankees general manager Brian Cashman spoke of Judge's hitting woes on YES Network's 'Yankees Hot Stove' program on Jan. 10, addressing the issue as one that could potentially be fixed in a trip back down to the Triple-A level. “He's a big kid and strikeouts are going to be part of his game,” Cashman said. “It’s just about limiting them. He can’t maintain a career at the big-league level with that many strikeouts, but if he can shave some off, we’ll take the power trade-off. "His history in the last two years of promotion in the Triple-A level and then last year with us was failure, adjustments, success. He experienced some failure at the major league level, and so I think that whole experience in the short sample will serve him well as he approaches 2017. And he’s got options. If he’s not quite ready, he gets to go down [to Triple-A] and finish himself off and wait until he’s ready.” Since Judge began to receive notoriety in New York's system, similarities between Judge and Miami Marlins' slugger Giancarlo Stanton have been evident, in terms of their intimidating physique and stature. "Everyone makes parallels with Stanton," Cockrell said. "If you look at the evolution from when he got in the big leagues to where he is now, he’s simplified a lot of things and it starts from the ground up, and Aaron’s trying to do some of those things, too."

Gary Sanchez needs to make adjustments

Gary Sanchez's rookie season came with an unanticipated amount of success, finishing with 20 home runs and 42 RBI in 201 at-bats. While the task to match those numbers and proportions seems too daunting, Cockrell believes Sanchez's biggest challenge will be adjusting to a pitcher's attack method in order to avoid the sophomore slump. "His swing is beautiful, he’s a smart kid, he pays attention to how he’s being attacked and he’s just going to have to make sure that he tailors his approach and make the adjustments he needs to make as teams adjust to him," Cockrell said. "We need to score more runs and we have some good young talented kids. Very optimistic going into this year with this young group.”

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