This off-season the writers at Pirates Breakdown will take a look at two different sets of projections for meaningful players on the roster and give you, the readers, their take on whether or not they think said player will meet, surpass, or fall below those projections. The projections for Steamer and ZiPs (created by Dan Szymborski) can be found on fangraphs.com. Yesterday, editor Jason Rollison took a look at the projections for Jon Niese. Today, we turn to the third piece of the Pirates’ future dream outfield, Gregory Polanco.
The success of the Pirates in 2016 hinges on a number of different factors. The team hasn’t significantly improved the team through external means this off-season and, as such, will be relying on the impact of top prospects advancing from Triple-A to the majors and on the improvement of some players already on the major league squad. No potential improvement by a player on the Pirates will help the success of the team more than that of Gregory Polanco.
Polanco had his share of struggles in 2014 when he was first called up, but showed improvement in sophomore year. Unfortunately, the projection systems don’t see him taking another leap forward in 2016.
[table id=60 /]Polanco improved in almost every offensive area from 2014 to 2015. Of course, some of his stats are up due to more plate appearances, but even someone who saw him play without looking at his stats would tell you he was a better player in 2015. He increased his average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage, each by at least 13 points. He also had a higher WAR. On the negative side, Polanco essentially had the same strikeout rate in 2014 and in 2015 (18.9% and 18.6%, respectively), and his walk percentage went from 9.6% down to 8.4%.
Both projections see Polanco basically replicating his 2015 campaign, but with an uptick in home runs by at least three, thus helping to lead to a higher slugging percentage. However, what’s of note is that Steamer projects Polanco to play in only 140 games (not listed on the table), which would only be the case if he were to miss time due to injury or be benched, the latter of which would only happen if he reverted to struggling like he did in 2014.
I hope Polanco takes another stride forward this upcoming season, and I see him doing just that. He saw improvement in almost every area from 2014 to 2015, and I think he’ll show improvement once again. Polanco had signifcantly more doubles from 2014 to 2015 (nine to 35) and in triples (zero to six), but only two more home runs. Eventually, these doubles and triples will start turning into more home runs, leading to an overall increase in power from Polanco.
In order to beat the projections and to become the third great piece of potentially the best outfield in baseball, Polanco still has to work on a few things. He needs to become more disciplined at the plate, limiting strikeouts and increasing walks (we saw his plate patience for extended periods of time at points last season, which is encouraging), as well as on the base-paths, the latter of which should start to happen with more time in the league. He also needs to improve his defense in right field, which will also naturally occur as he gets used to one of the more difficult right fields to defend in the league.
Polanco has all the tools to be great, and as long as he shows improvement once again in 2016, the Pirates should be satisfied with him. And I think he will do that and beat his projections.
Please click HERE to read more of our 2016 Projections analysis.
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