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Gregory Polanco Remains a Prime Bounce Back Candidate
By Marty Leap
Gregory Polanco has hit the ball better than his results would indicate this season, can he turn things around?
*- I will preface this by saying all stats are from before last night’s game between the Pirates and Nationals in which Gregory Polanco went 2-for-4 with a double.
Despite a tumultuous end to the month of April, Gregory Polanco still seems primed to have a strong season for the Pittsburgh Pirates. While Polanco’s .192/.302/.423/.725 slash line, .309 wOBA, and 95 wRC+ all leave a lot to be desired, what he has done at the plate this year has been better than the results.
123 plate appearances into the 2018 season Polanco owns an exit velocity of 89.86 miles per hour, which is higher than the Major League average. Last season, Polanco had a major issue with exit velocity that issue, however, has been fixed.
He also owns a 35.1 percent hard contact rate, which is the second-highest of his Major League career. In fact, among National League hitters with at least 100 plate appearances, Polanco’s hard contact rate ranks 13th best in the league. If Polanco continues to have an above league average exit velocity while generating hard contact more than 35 percent of the time, he will turn things around this season.
Furthermore, Polanco has fixed the other major issue he had in 2017 – hitting too many groundballs. After hitting groundballs a whopping 42.2 percent of the time in 2017, Polanco’s current 36.4 percent groundball rate is a career low and the more balls a batter puts in the air the more hits they will collect.
The biggest issue this season for Polanco has been his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) which is just .197. This is unsustainably low and indicates that Polanco has been extremely unlucky as a hitter this season. If Polanco continues to generate hard contact and hit fewer balls on the ground, his BABIP will even back out, league average is .300, and Polanco’s results will improve along the way.
To Polanco’s credit, he has not let the poor results cause him to be any less patient at the plate this season. His 13.0 percent walk rate is by far a new career-high for the Pirate right fielder, and it is the first time in his career this number has been higher than 9.0 percent.
Next: Pirate Mailbag: May 2, 2018
Will Gregory Polanco turn things around this season? Well, as a wise man once said, only time will tell. However, if he continues to drive the ball the way he has this season and keeps generating as much hard contact as he has then he should turn things around in a big way.