2016 MLB Player Profile: Gregory Polanco

Gregory Polanco won’t turn 25 years old until September. He has just a year and a half of work on his resume at this point, but in his first full season last year he stole 27 bases and scored 83 runs hinting at his fantasy potential. Is this the year that Gregory finally reaches the heights that have long been predicted for him?

Here is a link to all the players that have been reviewed in the 2016 Player Profile Series.

THE NUMBERS

One of the elite prospects in baseball, here is how the “Big 3” ranked him in 2013 and 2014.

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APPROACH

Polanco has hit just .249 through a season and a half with the Pirates. That’s not good when you consider the league average the past two seasons is .258 (outfielders have hit .265). Why the low mark for such a talented guy?

Polanco has a .296 BABIP to this point, a league average mark.

Polanco owns an 18.7 percent K-rate and 8.3 percent swinging strike rate. Both those numbers are better than league average. The same can be said for his contract rate of 81.5 percent (percentage of contact made on all his hacks according to PITCHf/x data).

Polanco doesn’t have a huge walk rate at 8.8 percent, it’s basically a league average type of mark.

None of the above suggest that Polanco couldn’t see his batting average improve. At the same time, none of the data suggests that he’s been “unlucky” the past two seasons.

Given the lack of batting average and walks, it’s not at all surprising to see that Polanco owns an OBP of .316 in his young career. That mark is worse than the league average of .322 and it’s well below the .330 mark that outfielders have posted the last two seasons. Some of those struggles have to do with his lefty/righty splits, you can read more about those issues below, but the overall game doesn’t look great at the moment.

POWER

Polanco has 16 home runs… over the course of 870 at-bats. Poor number indeed. Hope for growth? Well, we have to remember that his season best homer total to this point is 16, back in 2012, so it’s not like he’s yet been able to find the stroke people think lurks in his 6’4”, 220 lbs frame.

Polanco owns a fly ball rate of 34 percent with the Pirates. That’s a league average mark.

Polanco owns a 6.9 percent HR/F ratio. That’s well below the league average of 10 percent. A big man, Polanco just doesn’t currently own the stroke to jack up his fly ball rate which means the only way we see substantial growth in the homer column for him will be if he can increase the frequency that his fly balls reach the seats. Doesn’t seem overly likely. Last season Polanco was 205^th in baseball with a 273.15 foot distance on his fly balls. Cody Asche and Nick Ahmed were within a foot of that for goodness sakes. Big time growth isn’t hinted at by the data we have to analyze.

If we look at Polanco’s Isolated Power mark, which basically speaks to a player’s ability to power the baseball, we find a mark of .120 for his career which is terrible given that the league average the last two seasons is .141 (outfielder .162). What I’m saying is that Polanco doesn’t profile as a guy likely to hit more than 15 home runs, even if everything comes together.

SPLITS

To this point of his career we really have two players with Polanco.

Against righties Polanco is a very solid offensive performer with a .270 batting average, a .339 OBP and .402 SLG.

However, when he faces lefties he’s flat out hideous with a .183/.239/.264 slash line. That’s a .503 OPS over the course of 228 plate appearances when a portsider has been on the bump. He also owns a .227 BABIP, a 15.8 percent line drive rate and a mere .082 Isolated Power mark. He’s been abysmal versus lefties. This is a real concern for Polanco. To this point he’s shown nothing against lefties to suggest that he should be on the field when a lefty is on the bump. Nothing. McCutchen and Marte will play daily in center and left, so the question is will the Pirates let things rip with Polanco or will the turn to another bat? Looking at their current roster I really don’t see an option to take over in left unless the Pirates want to butcher their defense for some offensive upside. Michael Morse can’t field, but he can hit lefties, and over the course of his career Morse has a .273/.335/.472 line against them so there is certainly a chance that Polanco could be benched against some lefties. Heck, even Sean Rodriguez could see some time out there given that he too is much better against lefties (.246/.336/.400 for his career).

SPEED

Polanco has nice speed and can swipe a base. We’re not talking category winning stuff, but solid production is likely from Polanco, and you just can’t say that there are many 25 steal guys out there anymore. In fact, only 15 men stole 25 bases last season while only 30 crested 20. Folks just don’t run anywhere near as frequently as they used to, and that’s a big shift on the offensive side of things. Polanco is obviously one of the top group with 27 thefts last season, and his average per 162 games as a Pirate equates to… 27 steals. He’s not elite, but a very substantial option in the stolen base column is he.

LINEUP

Here is what we know at this point. The Pirates are considering changing things up.

The club is considering batting John Jaso in the top spot. There has also been some talk of Francisco Cervelli, and his OBP, slotting second in the lineup (McCutchen has hit there as well). Sounds like Jung Ho Kang (when healthy) or Starling Marte might hit cleanup. Does all of this mean that Polanco hits 1^st, 2^nd, 5^th or 6^th? We’re just not sure yet though I would still assume it’s toward the top. We do know that Polanco hit first 98 times last season and 2^nd 26 times for a total of 124 of his 153 games. Keep a close eye on how his spot in the order plays out, but I would bet he slots in at the top or second, two excellent spots for him to be.

OUTLOOK

Polanco is an elite talent who is only 24 years old, has a great baseball body, and a good deal of experience the past two seasons. He’s also more about the parts than the whole at this point. The only category that he appears to be a lock in is in the steals category, though with just a bit of growth, and a spot at the top of the Pirates order, he could also be a substantial contributor in the runs scored category. I’ve said repeatedly that the data doesn’t suggest growth. I have to lean on that. At the same time, my eyes tell me that there is something substantial here and that Polanco could put it all together and offer a coalescence of his talents quickly.

10-team Mixed: Polanco is a 4^th outfielder in this format. The runs/steals will play, but with concerns about his ability to improve in the batting average category, or the power category for that matter, there’s no analytical reason to push him substantially up the rankings.

12-team Mixed: A bottom level third outfielder. Ideally I would take him as my fourth outfielder in this format as well, but I could live with him as my third guy if the rest of my roster was banging (it had better be if he’s the third). The holes, and the potential to lose at-bats to lefties, weighs on me a bit.

15-team Mixed: A third outfielder, fine. There’s a 15/30 season lurking here, and that’s just the type of player you want to take a shot on a bit earlier than the overall data might suggest. There’s no crap-out coming with Polanco, last season is likely the floor, but that doesn’t mean there will be substantial growth either.  

NL-Only: Talent is talent. In the least, 500+ plate appearances seem a certainty. The speed is legit. That speaks to Polanco being a nice target. Don’t necessarily want to see you get into fevered bidding for Polanco, but he certainly profiles, despite what the spreadsheet says, as a player who could take his game to the next level in 2016.

To see where Polanco ranks take a look at our 2016 Rankings that are part of the MLB Draft Guide.

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).