Gregory Polanco Extension Further Signifies What’s Truly Important to Pittsburgh Pirates

Given the current (and future) state of MLB contracts, it’s important for small market teams to lock up elite young talent at an affordable price when the opportunity presents itself.

Keeping up with NL Central teams like the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals without spending a bunch of money is always a challenge for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but it’s going alright so far in 2016. It’s only been three games, but Andrew McCutchen and Co. swept St. Louis in their season-opening series.

That wasn’t the only good news for the Pirates this week, either. They recently announced that the organization agreed to a five-year, $35 million extension (plus two option years) with 24-year-old outfielder, Gregory Polanco.

This agreement means a few different things moving ahead for the Pirates, but one thing that should be crystal clear for everyone in baseball is they value young position players way more than young pitching.

Here are the significant contract extensions Pittsburgh has agreed to over the past four years:

Since Polanco is fresh off a 2015 campaign in which he posted a .256/.320/.381 triple slash with a wRC+ of 94, could Pittsburgh have theoretically waited to strike a deal with their outfielder? Absolutely, but it makes sense from a performance and business perspective.

The Pirates will be faced with a big decision with regard to McCutchen’s contract status very soon. Including his option, he’s under team control through 2018, which is his age-31 season. It remains to be seen whether the face of this franchise will stay for the long-term or not, but it’s becoming an increasingly hot topic with each passing day.

How exactly do extensions for Polanco, Marte and others impact McCutchen? By locking up their arbitration-eligible players, it provides them with some cost certainty heading into future seasons instead of not knowing how much they’ll have to pay top talent via the arbitration process.

Polanco didn’t have a breakout season in 2015, but he still posted an fWAR of 2.3, which isn’t insignificant. If he makes good on his top prospect promise (he’s hitting .429/.615/.857 through three games this year), the Pirates’ front office can just sit back and enjoy it while knowing his services already have a fixed cost. This logic applies to Harrison and Marte, as well.

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One would assume that as Pittsburgh continues locking in fixed expenses around the diamond, the chances of extending McCutchen and making him a “Pirate for life” would also increase. Maybe.

Given the type of talent brought through Pittsburgh’s system in recent years, there have been more opportunities to agree to early-career extensions with position players instead of pitchers, but is this more of an organizational philosophy than a coincidence?

Most times, it’s pretty clear to see how front offices want to build their respective teams. A great example is the 2015 National League champion New York Mets. Throughout the lean years of the Sandy Alderson era, they rebuilt from the bottom up with elite pitching, and now look at them. They potentially have five young aces under team control for multiple seasons, and their eventual success or failure will ultimately land on how well they pitch.

For the Pirates, it appears to be the opposite, especially with someone like pitching coach Ray Searage on the staff. He’s taken on plenty of projects since joining Pittsburgh and turned them into unlikely assets, some of which include Mark Melancon, Joe Blanton, Francisco Liriano, Edinson Volquez and J.A. Happ. Most recently, it appears he’s also transformed Juan Nicasio into a whole new pitcher (although it’s still early for that one).

Despite this reputation the Pirates have built over the years, shouldn’t they still look into extending Gerrit Cole? After all, he’s only 25 years old and is coming off a career season in which he posted a 19-8 record with a 2.60 ERA, 8.74 K/9, 1.90 BB/9 and a 5.4 fWAR in 208 innings of work. He’s the kind of pitcher you build an entire staff around, right?

Well, the answer to that question is yes, but there are a couple of reasons why it probably won’t happen. One is that his agent is Scott Boras, and if Boras known for anything, it’s for not taking any kind of perceived discount. Another reason is the fiasco behind Cole’s 2016 salary, which may have already evaporated any slim chances of something ever getting done.

Since he’s not eligible for arbitration yet, Pittsburgh can basically assign any salary they see fit for Cole, and they initially offered $538,000, which was actually less than what he earned in 2015 ($531,000 in base pay and $10,000 bonus for an All-Star appearance). The original offer was only that high because the team’s maximum raise for players in this situation is $7,000 per year.

However, they did up the ante to $541,000 to at least equal last year’s total earnings. While Cole was understandably still a little miffed about it, the front office apparently threatened to take that off the table and pay him the league minimum if he didn’t agree to it.

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As one would expect, Boras had something to say about that (quote view the Tribune-Review):

“What kind of message does that send to players? The best deserve the best. You should reward the best. I can’t believe that is a Bob Nutting-approved (salary) system. It doesn’t ring with the conversations Bob and I had when Gerrit signed.”

He’s got a valid point. While giving him a significant raise in the $100,000 or $200,000 range would go against their system, there also aren’t many pitchers in their organization that made a drastic jump in performance from one year to the next like Cole did.

When it comes to situations like these, there’s a huge disconnect in how the players are being treated. On one hand, we have Polanco, who is definitely talented and has promise, but hasn’t put it all together in the big leagues yet. Still, Pittsburgh is comfortable in making a pretty significant long-term investment in him.

On the other hand, Cole has progressively improved since debuting as a 22-year-old in 2013 and not only was an All-Star last year, but he finished fourth in NL Cy Young voting, and they’re pinching pennies over a few thousand dollars? That doesn’t really make a lot of sense.

Or maybe it does given their recent history.

Since they’ve locked up young position players and have Searage working his magic on what seems to be an annual basis, Cole could ultimately be viewed as expendable. So, they’ll take the variable cost that comes with his increased performance and reap the benefits in the short-term, but won’t be afraid to move on because they don’t feel as though he’s a necessary piece of their puzzle for the long-term. Especially since they have another top pitching prospect on the cusp of landing in the big leagues like Tyler Glasnow.

Whether this is actually true or not, it’s what their actions over the last few months have told us, and it’s probably burned a bridge that could’ve easily been avoided.

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