For one reason or another, some baseball insiders don’t believe in Placido Polanco. He’s too old to be given a three-year contract, some wrote. He’s clearly not the third baseman that Pedro Feliz was, others offer.
Whatever it is, the shift from second base (where he was a Gold Glover for two of the past three seasons) at age 34 for an average salary of $6 million per year, just wasn’t the smartest thing for the Phillies to do, it’s been written. Take this one from the popular web site, Major League Trade Rumors:
The Polanco signing is a candidate for the worst of the offseason. The Tigers were unwilling to offer arbitration to their Type A free agent second baseman, presumably because they felt the risk of a one-year deal in the $6-7MM range outweighed the prospect of two draft picks. The three-year, $18MM commitment the Phillies gave Polanco in early December was the polar opposite of the one year, $1MM deal the Cardinals gave Felipe Lopez two months later.
But ask the men in uniform or the front offices what they think about Placido Polanco and the review is the exact opposite. Polanco is a baseball player, they say. Every action and reaction is based on the situation presented before him, regardless if they can be measured by some sort of formula, chart or graph. Need a fly ball, Polanco will hit one. Need a line drive or ground ball hit behind a runner, Polanco will do that, too.
...“Since I was a little kid playing back in the Dominican Republic, I knew I wasn’t going to be a power hitter so I had to learn how to handle the bat and put the ball in play,” he said. “I just worked really hard at that instead of trying to hit the ball out of the park.”
And maybe that’s why some of those numbers guys don’t like Polanco? He’s the kind of guy who makes stats about as valuable as the paper they’re printed on.
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The Mets should focus on getting Akinori Iwamura from the Pirates.
This is a guarnteed never-fails way to make me stop reading your column.
Well, other than 2006 WAR has consistently considered him to be an above average player with all-star potential ('03, '05 & '07). Of course, a lot of that has to do with UZR's evaluation of his defense, but a player who can produce at a league average level offensively with above average defense at 2B & 3B is a valuable member to any team, especially when he throws in a few above average seasons with the bat, like the aforementioned years.
Now, his OPS+ has dropped from 121 to 101 to 88 over the past 3 years as he enters his mid-thirties, a potential danger zone for an infielder, but he's been a valuable player over his career so far--more valuable than it was thought among the some in the sabermetric community during his first tenure with the Phillies, I think.
That's what first came to mind when I saw the article's title.
He'd also look pretty good on the Mets right about now.
Actually he's the kind of player WAR will value while simplistic anyalysis like looking at ops+ will undervalue. Polanco had 28.9 WAR from 2001-2008. By comparison, Derek Jeter had 35.3. Cherry-picking alert: Jeter was much better in 2009. 2001 was Polanco's first year as a full time player.
Phillies made a big mistake not just handing him the 3B job in 2005, and eating David Bell's contract. It very likely cost them the division that year, since they lost by only two games, Polanco was +14 batting runs for the Tigers, Bell was -23 batting runs for the Phillies, and 50 innings of 4.13 ERA (Urbina) is replaceable.
edit: I think I'd actually be more understanding if that were really the case. It is spring, after all, what're you gonna write? I don't want to think professional writers and editors keep independently coming to this story idea and approving of it.
More like $7M, for a 2 WAR player, in the last two off-seasons though, IIRC. Hasn't the $/WAR fallen to about $3.5M?
The valuation isn't bad based on what he's done, but I'd be worried about a 34 y.o. 2B, on a three year decline, moving to a position he hasn't played in 5 years.
This might be the most common misspelling that I see.
I'll go with "Bobby Abreau"
I prefer the spelling if he went on the Howard Stern show.
Bob Abuee Bob Abuee Bob Abuee
Why doesn't every situation call for a home run? Can he hit a home run on demand?
:-) Yes, a home run is always the optimal offensive outcome.
This is also an odd use of the word supersede. "Supersede" means replace or take the place of.
By the way, although I think Polanco is a decent signing for the Phillies, this article makes such stupid arguments that I start to have second thoughts about my original opinion.
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