Placido Polanco to sign with Phillies

[Invader3K]

Info is up on MLB Trade Rumors. Reportedly a three year deal worth $18 million total. Presumably he'd be playing third base.

[yoshii8]

I like Polanco, but I think the Phillies could have done better at 3rd w/ Beltre, DeRosa and Figgins still out there. Plus 3/18 is a lot for Polanco.

[JohnBriggs12]

I agree with yoshii8. His numbers have fallen rather significantly the last 2 years and he's 34. With plenty of other options, I can't understand the Phillies giving him the 3rd year. He's still a solid player though and won't hurt them in the short term.

[Patrick425]

Ditto what yoshii said. I pretty much thought it was a given that either Figgins or Beltre would be on the Phillies next year.

[rluzinski]

Averagish hitter, decent defender. He's old for a 3 year deal but he's only getting paid $6 mil a year. This looks like a good deal for the Philly. How much do people think teams should pay for an average player these days? $4 mil or something?

[jerichoholicninja]

Not sure if payroll is an issue with them but maybe they are leaving some room for an extension for Lee and possibly bringing on another big contract like Halladay.

[joepepsi]

I like Polanco, but I think the Phillies could have done better at 3rd w/ Beltre, DeRosa and Figgins still out there. Plus 3/18 is a lot for Polanco.

Last 2 year composite OPS/Career OPS

 

Polanco: .747/.761

ABeltre: .739/.779

Figgins: .745/.751

Derosa: .805/.767-But remember, 2008 was a career year. He's never really approach that .857 OPS in any other season.

 

Polanco may be declining, but he's still a nice player. They might be losing a little offense with him at 3rd, but when your 2B already hits like a HOF 3rd bagger, it shouldn't be an issue. Even so, he's sizable upgrade offensively over Feliz. He may not earn his $6 million in his 3rd year, but the Phillies might have another Championship between now and then, so who cares?

 

Not an earth shattering move, but a nice one that quickly plugs a hole for the best team in the league.

[Invader3K]

Even if he's bad by that third year, they could just DFA him (like they did Jenkins). The Phillies are like the fourth biggest payroll in baseball, so a few extra million isn't a big deal for them.

[rluzinski]

Unless the Phillies are winning to the World Series every year, they have to try to spend their money wisely, just like every other team.

[GAME05]

there's probably a big motivation to keep that team together as much as possible. even if it means not taking an upgrade with somebody else, it's going with what's worked and not risking a degradation of team chemistry.

[Funketown]

I don't understand the criticism of this deal. They just acquired a player who over the course of the deal will probably be slightly below average at the dish, and slightly above average in the field. I guess this goes to show how much more you get in the market for field players than pitchers these days.

[Invader3K]

Unless the Phillies are winning to the World Series every year, they have to try to spend their money wisely, just like every other team.

Not really. They're closer to the Yankees in terms of payroll flexibility than the Brewers. And since they've been to the World Series the last two years, they're probably trying for three-peat. I would guess they're not exactly short on cash.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

I bet the Tigers wished they offered Polanco arby. I can't believe the number of teams that are going to lose the opportunity for draft picks.

[rluzinski]

Not really. They're closer to the Yankees in terms of payroll flexibility than the Brewers. And since they've been to the World Series the last two years, they're probably trying for three-peat. I would guess they're not exactly short on cash.

 

The Phillies have more money than average, so it's OK if they spend it less wisely? I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

[And That]

The Phillies have more money than average, so it's OK if they spend it less wisely?

I believe Invader's point was not that it's OK if they spend money less wisely. It's that due to the size of their payroll, they have the ability to spend money less wisely (i.e. take more risks) and get away with it more than say, the Brewers. The greater the payroll, the greater margin for error. Like the Red Sox spending all that money on Smoltz and Penny last year for instance. It's not a prerequesite of a championship-caliber club to spend all of their payroll dollars wisely.

[Invader3K]

Thanks for summarizing it for me, And That.

[rluzinski]

All teams need to balance risk vs. reward and some teams have the capital to absorb more risk. No argument there. The Red Sox wouldn't sign the high risk players if the Red Sox didn't feel those players had the correspeonding possibility of reward. If the assumption is that Polanco is worth $6 mil/year but there's a reasonable risk his production could fall off a cliff in year 3, the Phillies probably shouldn't have signed him.

 

If Invader believes (like me) that Polanco's projected performace is actually worth more than $6/mil a year, great. Then there's the payoff for assuming the risk.

[Invader3K]

I don't know what Polanco's projected "value" is, but looking at his recent history, they're probably getting an above average defensive player, who may be slightly below league average offensively at 3B. I would worry his production may fall off by that third year, but not enough to make this a really bad signing. $6 million per year definitely doesn't seem out of line for a player of Polanco's caliber, in my opinion.

[MJLiverock]

All teams need to balance risk vs. reward and some teams have the capital to absorb more risk. No argument there. The Red Sox wouldn't sign the high risk players if the Red Sox didn't feel those players had the correspeonding possibility of reward. If the assumption is that Polanco is worth $6 mil/year but there's a reasonable risk his production could fall off a cliff in year 3, the Phillies probably shouldn't have signed him.

 

If Invader believes (like me) that Polanco's projected performace is actually worth more than $6/mil a year, great. Then there's the payoff for assuming the risk.

But if they make the World Series 1 or 2 times in that time would it really matter if one or two of the years didn't work out to him being a bargain or worth the contract?

 

I don't agree at all that every transaction has be an even money deal on a stand alone basis. Sometimes a team should overpay to get the last piece or few pieces for a championship run. Getting Cliff Lee for basically two playoff runs was a great deal for the Phillies, it doesn't matter if 5 years from now one of the guys they gave up turns out to be a great player.

 

The Brewers tradinig for CC was a perfect example. They took the risk of paying a player a lot of money, gave up some prospects, but in turn finally made the playoffs after a 26 year drought and at least a shot at the World Series.

 

A team can't continually sit back and try to only sign guys or make trades that appear so low risk or zero chance of downside that they end up with a bunch of average players. That line of thinking will just end up with an average team. Being average is better than being horrible but after a while the fan base will get bored and move on. Year after year of finishing in 3rd place isn't exciting even if the payroll spent per win is good. Having the most efficient payroll every year doesn't win a lot of fans or trophies, winning games does. I think that is some of the rub we are seeing on the boards here in other threads regarding Melvin. There is some criticism of the lack of creativity in the front office. Everyone realizes the Brewers won't have the resources to match the payroll of the bigger market teams so the only way to compensate is through shrewd moves, some of which will result in taking a higher risk for a higher payoff. Some will blow up but doing nothing or being paralyzed by fear of a mistake won't result in much better returns either, maybe not end up a terrible team but likely not being great either. Striving for middle of the road is not an acceptable goal for me.

[rluzinski]

I offered no opinion about how much risk a team should assume. I'm simply saying that the potential reward needs to justify it. I don't see anyone disagreeing with that.

 

And as for overpaying to win a World Series, we are talking about Polanco, not one of the best players in the league. Players like Polanco are plentiful, relative to players like Cliff Lee. There's little justification for overpaying for an average player, even if you are "going for it".

 

Are we even disagreeing about anything?

[MJLiverock]

Maybe not in retrospect but even if they are overpaying a guy like Polanco by a few million bucks for a year or two it is probably worth it if they needed someone to play third base during their run who wasn't going to be a horrible black hole or big risk of an unproven youngster called up.

 

I think my point is that sometime overpaying for a guy is acceptable and should occur if it fills a hole on an already very good team. Maybe the team could get a better $'s/production ratio out of some other guy but it probably isn't worth trying to save $2MM/year over.

[rluzinski]

To justify "overpaying" (hard thing to define), at least two things would have to be true:

 

1. There is no other available average infielder capable of playing 3B.

 

2. The Phillies have no other position they could use that money on to upgrade by a similair amount.

 

If the Phillies have $16 mil to pend and each win cost $4 mil on average, does it matter much where the upgrades are made? I would find it hard to believe that any team would have their hands forced in early December. The Yankees perhaps, but they have a fantasy baseball team.