Where has Gregory Polanco’s power gone?

After this 2016 campaign, Gregory Polanco looked poised to take a big step forward in 2017. His numbers tell a different story.

Some are probably wondering, what is the point of this article?

Compared to last year’s .258/.323/.462, Gregory Polanco’s slash line of .274/.347/.422 so far in 2017 looks fairly similar. But it is the slugging percentage that shows a fairly significant drop while his batting average and on-base percentage have risen slightly.

There have to be some reasons as to why Polanco’s power has dropped, and we are going to take a look at some reasons that could explain it.

What’s causing the power outage?

Right away, the decrease in ISO (Isolated Power) indicates that Polanco is not hitting for as much power as he did during his breakout season last year.

In 2016, his ISO was .205, which is well above average. This year’s .148 ranks just above league average. Now, one reason that his ISO is lower than last year can be explained simply by looking at his quality of contact.

Last year, Polanco’s soft, medium and hard contact percentages were: 18.3, 46 and 35.7 respectively.

This year those percentages are: 26.3, 50 and 23.7.

So we can see that Gregory Polanco is making soft or medium contact more often this year, while his hard contact percentage has dropped considerably. Because harder hit balls in play are more likely to result in a hit, more of the balls in play hit by Polanco this year are being turned into outs due to his drop in hard contact.

Disciplinary Issues

The PITCHf/x plate discipline data on Polanco’s Fangraphs page also is rather telling.

Polanco’s O-Swing percentage, which is used to calculate the percentages of pitches a hitter swings at outside the strike zone has risen from 32.4 last year to 36. In turn, his Z-Swing percentage, which calculate the percentage of pitches a hitter swings at in the strike zone has decreased from 64.7 to 62.9. While the difference in these two statistics is nominal, it’s certainly enough to have some effect on Polanco’s decrease in power production this season. He is swinging at more pitches that are not in the strike zone and less that are in the strike zone.

Polanco is also having less fly balls go for home runs compared to last season. In 2016, 14.4 percent of his fly balls went over the fence. This year, that number sits at 9.4 So it’s easy to see that if more of the fly balls Polanco hit in the future go for home runs, this will boost many of the power statistics that are lagging this year.

However, Polanco is still showing this year that he could turn things around quickly. His walk percentage is 9.3, up from 9 last season. He has also cut his strikeout percentage down from 20.3 in 2016 to 13.9 this year. His BABIP of .306 indicates that he is not being affected by good or bad luck too much since his batting average is .274.

Also, Polanco has been dealing with a banged up ankle for the last few weeks. This has no doubt affected his play as of late, and could even be something that has affected him for some of all of the season so far. After missing a 10 game stretch of games from May 16-25, Polanco has recorded at least one hit in all of the games he has played in since then. In fact, he knocked all three of his home runs in the month of May, with two of them coming after he took a breather and rested his ankle.

The Pittsbugh Pirates need Gregory Polanco to become the Gregory Polanco that many thought he would be at this stage in his career, and fast.

Image Credit – Daniel Decker Photography