Pirates Prospect Tony Sanchez Told to Get off Twitter?

Pittsburgh Pirates No. 2 prospect Tony Sanchez could make it in the UFC.  No, we have not seen him fight.  No, he doesn’t appear to be exceptionally big, tough, or insane.  He just likes to tweet and in the UFC you get paid for that type of thing.  Or, should I say, Sanchez liked to tweet.

According to CBSSports.com, the 22-year-old catcher deleted his Twitter account (@TSanchez26) at around 3:30 on Tuesday after writing, “See ya twitter. thanks to the fans for their support and continued support. Pittsburgh is the only goal and twitter is standing in my way.”  Although Pirates farm director Kyle Stark denied that the team told Sanchez to stop using Twitter, that tweet would certainly indicate he was given an ulterior motive.

As for the reasons why he either decided to or was encouraged to stop using Twitter, Sanchez has been a little too loose-lipped — or loose-fingered — with some of his tweets and had to apologize on several different occasions for it.  The first tweet he wrote that upset Stark had to do with throwing a party, and Sanchez later spoke to the Altoona Mirror and apologized for it.  Apparently he hadn’t learned his lesson.

On May 9, Sanchez was upset with the umpires in his minor league game and decided to tweet, “Sometimes the umpires just decide to blow a game. Never seen a winning teams (sic) crow go silent as the game winning (sic) run crosses the plate.”  As you can imagine, publicly criticizing umpires is not a smart idea for a player who has yet to even climb the ladder into the major leagues.  Once again, Sanchez apologized for the tweet.

However, he got himself into trouble yet again on Monday night, this time by tweeting a picture of a woman’s exposed thong at a gas station who he claims was allowing her son to throw fireworks.  Sanchez also wrote “only in Altoona” to go along with the picture.  Funny?  Certainly.  Smart?  Probably not.

While Stark is likely telling the truth about not having banned any players from Twitter, there is little doubt he strongly discouraged Sanchez to stop using it.  Twitter has been known to get established superstars like Chad Ochocinco in trouble, so it is probably best that players who are looking to take their careers to the next level not use it to stir up controversy.  All in all, Sanchez made the right choice by deleting the account.