Wedge interviews

NEW YORK — Eric Wedge promises a touchyfeely approach if hired as New York Yankees manager, rejecting the old-school method of publicly challenging players to motivate them.

“If something like that happens today, especially with social media and everything else that’s involved with it, it’s going to have legs, it’s going to be misinterpreted, there’s going to be a lot more opinion about it and it’s going to be one hell of the distraction,” the former Cleveland and Seattle manager said Friday after his interview with the Yankees. “I’d say that that day has probably passed by.”

Joe Girardi criticized Gary Sanchez last August and benched him for a game, saying: “Bottom line, he needs to improve. He’s late getting down.” Sanchez tied for the big league lead with 16 passed balls and was behind the plate for 53 wild pitches, second-most in the majors.

Wedge spoke of a generic player receiving a rebuke from his manager through the media.

“You’re going to have to have one tough cookie to be able to do that and make it work for you,” he said. “For him to get something out of that, he’s going to have to be really tough to be able to handle that and actually digest it to see it’s in his best interest.”

After a decade managing the Yankees, Girardi was told last month that he was not being offered a contract. Wedge became the second person to interview for the job following New York bench coach Rob Thomson on Wednesday.

Sanchez, who turns 25 next month, was an AllStar in his first full big league season.

“He’s still young. He’s still learning. He’s still going through things that he needs to go through and he will continue to go through, but he’ll get better,” said Wedge, a former catcher. “It’s just a maturation process that young players with his type of ability have to go through.”

Now 49, Wedge was a “cup of coffee” player in the majors, getting 86 at-bats over four seasons with Boston (1991-92, 1995) and Colorado (1994) and making 23 appearances behind the plate.

After working as an ESPN analyst in 2014 and 2015, Wedge spent the last two seasons as a player development adviser with Toronto.

Wedge