GREGORY POLANCO
BATS: L
AGE: 25
TEAM: Pittsburgh
INDICATORS
On-base .323
BABIP .291
Slugging .463
Total Bases 244
OPS .786
vs RHP .261
vs LHP .245
wOBA .331
TWO-YEAR MAJOR LEAGUE STATISTICS
BA OBP AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB
.256 .320 593 83 152 35 6 9 52 27 (2015)
.258 .323 527 79 136 34 4 22 86 17 (2016)
2016: His batting average and OBP still aren’t where we’d like it, but Polanco jumped his pull percentage by 10 percent and a related home run spike came along. It also helped that he swung at more pitches in the strike zone, even if that approach didn’t help his walk rate any. Although Polanco basically played a full season, he battled shoulder and knee problems in the second half, at times helped by PRP injections.
Forecast: We’ll also give Polanco a thumbs up for his work against left-handed pitching — after batting .190 against them two years ago, he had no OPS split at all last year. Pittsburgh was smart to lock him up through his age 31 season; he’s capable of jumping into the superstar class in the next year or two. It’s a nice time to buy in.