Night after night Gregory Polanco presses the case for a promotion to the big-leagues while the Pittsburgh Pirates steadfastly refuse to call up the gilt-edged prospect, even as they muck their way through a poor start to the season.
Yes, the defending National League wild card winners look like they could use an injection of life into their lineup and the dazzling Dominican outfielder, batting .392/.443/.608 at triple-A Indianapolis through Tuesday’s play, certainly seems ready to provide one.
Yet the challenge GM Neal Huntington faces is in balancing the needs of a team in its competitive window against a proven development process that in recent years has integrated the likes of Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, Pedro Alvarez, Starling Marte and Gerrit Cole into the club’s core.
In seasons past, the Pirates could afford to give their prospects time to learn on the fly, but now the focus “is not only is he ready to play in the major-leagues, is he ready to help our team win,” explains Huntington. “We need to do everything in our power to make sure we bring a player to the big-leagues when we feel like he’s ready, and not because we have a perceived need.”
That’s where things get complicated.
To this point, the Pirates’ right-field platoon of Jose Tabata and Travis Snider has produced an OPS of .588, and it’s reasonable to think that the six-foot-four, 220-pound Polanco can provide an upgrade there. Still, the question is whether the 22-year-old is ready “mentally, physically, fundamentally and personally” for the transition to the big-leagues, and how any potential growing pains may impact him.
Sometimes with young players, “it becomes about survival instead of helping a team win,” says Huntington, and the risk is “if you push a player before he’s ready, that survival mode could extend for years.”
“There’s the school of thought, ‘Well, if he’s not ready you just send him out,'” Huntington adds. “Guys react very differently to being sent out. Some overcome it immediately, some take a little bit of time, some never overcome it, and those are the types of risks that we in our market size can’t afford to take. We can’t afford to just throw a guy to the wolves and if he doesn’t survive, chalk it up to, ‘Well, he wasn’t going to anyway.’ That’s our fault if a guy doesn’t get there, we didn’t do the right things if he doesn’t live up to his ability. We own that. Rushing a player in our minds is never a good solution.”
There are, of course, other points of view.
A report Tuesday night by Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports linked Polanco’s continued tenure at Indianapolis to the fact he turned down a seven-year deal with three club options. The reported deal would have guaranteed him roughly $25 million, according to an unnamed source. By waiting so long to bring him up, the Pirates have already pushed back his free agency an extra year and delaying his arrival into June may help prevent Polanco from entering his arbitration years early as a super two player.
Huntington, speaking to Sportsnet prior to the report, insisted the only considerations are related to what’s best for Polanco’s development, and noted “we’re probably a little bit more conservative than most would want us to be.”
The Pirates are also particularly meticulous in the way they handle their players, creating a personalized blueprint for everyone in their system that involves input from player-development officials, coaches plus strength and conditioning staff.
The goal is for the blueprint to become a “living, breathing document and not just a sheet of paper” that’s “the equivalent of a school educational plan with what we’re trying to accomplish with this player, this is how we believe we’re going to accomplish it, and we work through that process,” says Huntington.
The Pirates’ philosophies are also informed by their own experiences with the current roster and a study conducted around the majors that showed “the players that have had the most successful transition have had significant experience at the triple-A and, in most cases, the double-A level,” says Huntington.
McCutchen, the reigning NL MVP, had 881 plate appearances at triple-A before his promotion to the majors while Walker had 1,198 plate appearances at Indianapolis before he stuck with the Pirates for good. Both made the jump relatively smoothly.
On the flip side, the triple-A plate appearances total was much lower for Alvarez (426) and Marte (431) and both had a far more uneven adjustment. That’s why Huntington says, “we’ve had a much better track record when we’ve been patient and we’ve allowed each level to teach that player lessons before bringing him to the big-leagues.”
“In Gregory Polanco’s case, we’re really excited about how successful he’s been in his first 100 plate appearances in triple-A,” he adds. “But we do think there’s going to be some adjustments made to him, and his adjustments back to the league are going to be crucial because at the major-league level they find your holes quicker and they exploit them on a more consistent basis. If you can’t adjust on the fly, you’re going to have some extended struggles.”
There are always exceptions to be found, like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, who take off and never look back. The Pirates experienced that last year with Cole, the six-foot-four, 240-pound right-hander who’s been overpowering since his debut.
Huntington admits to making that promotion “a little bit before we were truly comfortable with it,” while adding the No. 1 overall pick in 2011 “made that look silly.”
The Pirates’ hope is, eventually, Polanco makes them feel the same way. For now, they’re not chancing it.
“The thing we’ve tried to continually remind ourselves of is there was a method to how we got to where we are at this point and time and we don’t want to deviate from that to chase the final piece, whether that’s a trade acquisition or shifting a draft philosophy or shifting a free-agent signing philosophy or bringing a young player to the major leagues,” says Huntington. “We want to remain patient and disciplined, as hard as it can be.”
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INTERLEAGUE RULES: Whenever an American League team heads into a National League park to play it stirs debate over whether it makes sense for the two loops to continue operating under different rules.
The concern, for some, is that AL pitchers not used to hitting end up in some danger when they step into the batter’s box, while some clubs move players out of position – the way the Toronto Blue Jays have done with Brett Lawrie – in order to find a spot for their DH.
Jose Bautista, who’s active with the players union, says he’s heard some discussion about unifying the rules between the leagues at least for interleague play, but believes it only makes sense if it’s “not for interleague games exclusively.”
“If the National League would try to adopt something permanently that would accommodate both leagues, I think more guys would be open to it,” he says. “But something that’s just going to be shaped around the interleague games, it seems that it would be more difficult to implement and more painstaking to go through the process for a handful of games.”
His opinion on the matter?
“I feel like baseball has been played a long time and National League games have their attraction over American League games,” he says. “Why not have both? I don’t necessarily see the need for change.”
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VOTING TIME: Baseball Canada is conducting voting on its website in order to determine the top moment or story in the organization’s 50-year history.
The voting will be conducted over a 10-week period featuring 50 nominated moments and stories divided up for the preliminary round, with winners advancing to the semifinals and final, which takes place July 28-Aug. 1.
Candidates include Canada’s victory over the United States at the 2006 World Baseball Classic, Canada’s victory over the United States at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the “legend of Stubby Clapp,” and Canada’s gold at the 2011 Pan Am Games.