The Price for David Price Can’t Include Gregory Polanco

Fangraphs took a look at just what David Price of the Tampa Bay Rays could cost. Since the Pittsburgh Pirates were one of the teams mentioned in the story and tweet by Jeff Passan, Fangraphs Dave Cameron started doing some math.

Just reading the Gregory Polanco part of the story is a bit tough. But so is this paragraph.

"So Price is both pretty expensive and massively underpaid at the same time. Any team acquiring Price is going to be giving up a good chunk of their financial resources, but they’re also going to be getting a guy who is earning half of what he should be making, relative to market prices for elite players. And that — along with either the chance to try and sign him to a long term deal before he reaches free agency — is why Price has a ton of trade value at the moment. He absolutely should command a huge return for the Rays."

Key phrase is huge return.  Look at the expected WAR for Polanco in 2014.  The defense stands out and after seeing Polanco play, it might be a bit sandbagged.

Then the story gets good and this is where you need to just click over and read for yourself.

The bottom line is just what we wrote last night, Gregory Polanco is much more valuable to the Pirates right now.  Especially, and I can’t emphasize this enough, when considering the short term options the Bucs have in right field.  And yes, I understand that Price is proven, and Polanco is not proven.

Maybe Jose Tabata will put it together.  Perhaps Travis Snider’s toe is healed in and he breaks out.  Jaff Decker tears it up at Indy and forces his way to the Bucs roster.  Andrew Lambo keeps crushing homers.  Yeh, maybe.

But it just doesn’t matter.  Gregory Polanco is the man.  A player the Bucs will be able to continue to build the ball club around.   We can only trust that Tabby, Snider, Decker and Lambo break out because all of them become somewhat attractive trade chips at the crucial 2014 deadline.

Someone is going to overpay for two years of David Price.  It just better not be the Pirates.