Trading Jorge Polanco

Well Tom, If you hate the idea of Polanco being traded for prospects you are likely going to be disappointed.  Teams that want Polanco are not likely to trade away well above average pitching or a good power bat.  The primary benefit of trading Polanco would be redistributing the salary to a free agent starting pitcher.  Obviously, the $10M does not buy a free agent SP but it could provide funding to spend $20M instead of $10M on a free agent SP.

Maybe this will make you feel better.  Go to Fangraphs and look at how the players on any 90+ win team (among teams in the bottom 2/3 of revenue) in the past 20 years and look at how those rosters were built.  Players that were acquired as prospects or players acquired before every producing at the ML level are far and away more important to building a winning team than trading for established players.  It's not even remotely close.  We want established players because we want immediate gain.  However, as we saw with Mahle and Lopez trading for established players is not a certain thing.  The Rays and Gaurdians prove over and over how effective flipping players that profile like Polanco for prospects can be we fans still don't want prospects.  I will gladly take a good prospect and invest the extra $10M in a very good SP or even a very good bat.

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

162 x 3.1 = 502

502 is how many PA's you need to qualify for the batting title. 

We had 1 player (Carlos Correa) reach that mark in 2023. 

I surely didn't predict that Donovan Solano would be third in PA's and Willi Castro would be 4th.

 

134 divided by 30 teams = 4.47

There were 134 MLB players total who reached 502 PA's to qualify.  

 

Just counting position players -- The injured list (10 and 60 day) was utilized a total of 23 times. Plus 22 separate times a position player on the 26 man roster was listed as day to day without IL utilization. Once again... that's just position players... not counting pitchers. 

Here are the players who spent time on the injured list. (Just position players) 

Royce Lewis, Joey Gallo and Jorge Polanco 3 times.  

Carlos Correa, Alex Kiriloff, Byron Buxton and Max Kepler 2 times.  

Michael A. Taylor, Willi Castro, Jose Miranda, Trevor Larnach, Nick Gordon and Kyle Farmer once. 

 

Over the course of the 2023 season. 

8 different players played 1B

7 different players played 2B (Including Vazquez twice) 

6 different players played 3B

5 different players played SS

12 different players played OF

 

Yet... Polanco and Julien on the same roster is an issue that must be rectified because every off season... the mythical log jam rears it's head out of Loch Ness.  

 

I don’t think anyone is arguing Polanco would not get ABs.  The argument is that the dollars would be better spent elsewhere given the payroll situation.  In other words, we are looking at a different equation than what you have illustrated.  The equation is Polanco’s replacement + 9,760,000 will provide a better net result than Polanco. 

For example, they are going to sign another SP. I would rather have Castro/Miranda/Severino or Pratt take those PAs IF Julien or Lewis are injured and sign a SP for 21.76M instead of $12M.  If neither or those two are injured I would rather have Julien or Lewis getting as many PAs as possible. 

We also have Brooks Lee at AAA with a reasonable expectation he will be ready half-way through the season.  Do you want to keep him stashed at AAA or invest that playing time in him to make us better for the next several years?  It's also worthy of noting that Polanco has been injury prone himself.

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

Budget is the only justification for a trade. If he has to be moved for budget considerations than he will have to be moved for budget considerations. However... if it's budget I recommend Farmer at 6.5... or better yet... both for 18 and let's go bigger still.  

However... I'm not so sure that many of the posters across the many threads on the subject are looking at two 2B and saying that is too many. 

 

 

You might be right.  I am of course reading between the lines of the comments.  It seems like most here are very aware of the budget considerations which is why I assumed they were thinking in terms of reallocating the money.  I think the bigger disconnect is that many hope Polanco is traded for high-end established pitching.  That's not going to happening.  At least not where Polanco the headliner.  It would take Polanco plus one of Lee / Jenkins or Julien and another decent prospect.