The Pittsburgh Pirates have inked Gregory Polanco to a long term extension. How does this compare to another pre-arbitration extension from the not so distant past?
Yesterday was Hate Day in the city of Pittsburgh as the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals on Opening Day and the Penguins beat the Philadelphia Flyers to close out their regular season home schedule.
As day turned to night it seemed impossible for April 3rd to really get any better and then there was some breaking news on twitter:
Source: Outfielder Gregory Polanco, Pirates agree to five-year extension w/ two club options. News at Yahoo Sports: https://t.co/QVLe4Q8jWW
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) April 4, 2016
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Jeff Passan reported that the Pirates and Gregory Polanco agreed to terms on a five year, $35 million contract extension. The deal also includes two club options would would bring the max value up to $60 million.
The Pirates have attempted to extend Polanco in the past, so this deal really shouldn’t come as a surprise, especially given the organization’s propensity to locking up young players before they reach arbitration. They did it with Andrew McCutchen in 2012, Starling Marte in 2014, Josh Harrison in 2015, and now Polanco in 2016.
Polanco has been fairly up and down since his 2014 call-up to the big leagues, but he was dynamic in the second half of 2015 and it seems management believes that he poised for a breakout in 2016. This deal makes sense from the organization’s perspective, but also makes a lot of sense for Polanco as he can avoid having to go to arbitration and gets financial security in the process.
What does this deal mean for the Pirates in 2016 and beyond? Well if Polanco lives up to the hype, they have another outstanding young player locked into a team-friendly deal, which they have with both Marte and McCutchen. The risk is that Polanco doesn’t pan out and you’re left with another Jose Tabata situation, but in the current economics of the game, having a plus defender with speed locked up for $7 million isn’t much of a financial risk even for the frugal Pittsburgh Pirates.
How does Gregory Polanco compare to Jose Tabata at the time of their extensions?
[table id=115 /]vs.
[table id=116 /]Jose Tabata was really good when he signed his contract extension, but he hadn’t shown all his potential yet. Polanco has been fairly inconsistent until this point but the big advantage that Polanco has is greatly improved in his second season, while Tabata regressed from 2010 to 2011.
The more traditional statistics seem to favor Tabata, but if you look at WAR in these two seasons, Tabata was worth a combined 1.2 Wins Above Replacement in 2010 and 2011. Gregory Polanco was worth 2.6 WAR alone in 2015. Polanco saw his WAR jump from -0.1 to 2.6 from 2014 to 2015, while Tabata saw a fall from 0.8 to 0.4 from 2010 to 2011. Tabata regressed and was always barely above replacement level. Polanco saw huge improvement in his first full MLB season offensively, which is why his contract is worth the risk.
Another comparison between Polanco and Tabata is both played right field at the time of their extensions, but defensively they have zero in common. In his two seasons in right field, Tabata had a combined UZR of -9.7 and a UZR/150 of -65.7. Simply put he was an atrocious defender and hurt the team way more than he helped them on defense. In his two seasons in right field, Polanco has a 3.2UZR and a 1.8UZR/150. So far Polanco has been a slightly above average defender, which is more than you could ever say about Tabata.
The biggest knock on Polanco so far in his career has been his base-running, but has he really been that bad? In his first two big league seasons, Polanco has a a BsR (which is the base-running component of Wins Above Replacement) of 9.7. Giving him a yearly average of 4.85, which is considered very good. In 2010 and 2011, Tabata had a BsR average of 1.05, which is slightly above average, so once again Gregory Polanco is vastly superior to Jose Tabata in another aspect of the game.
It’s really easy to be weary when a young player is extended, especially when they haven’t completely reached their potential, but if you look at the math, it all adds up to the Polanco extension being more than worth the money and risk. The Jose Tabata deal always seemed like a head-scratcher and only got worse as the years have gone by, but Polanco is a vastly superior player and should only continue to get better.
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