Former Pirates outfielder Gregory Polanco has signed with the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the team announced. It’ll be his first season with the Tokyo-based club.
News first broke of talks between Polanco and teams in the NPB back in mid-December. Polanco was not likely to get a Major League deal. Polanco has seen a once-promising career derailed by injuries that led to his release from Pittsburgh. Still just 30-years-old, Polanco will look to rebuild some value with his time in Japan.
Polanco owns a career .241/.309/.409 triple-slash line across 3,220 plate appearances, though he hasn’t been a positive contributor by rWAR since 2018. That year’s .254/.340/.499 slash (123 wRC+) feels like a distant memory, as Polanco has limped to a combined .203/.270/.364 batting line in 723 plate appearances since. His once minimal strikeout rate — he fanned at just a 14.6% clip in 2017 — has skyrocketed to 30.2% in the past three seasons.
His MLB career consists of eight seasons from 2014-2021, all with the Pirates. He did sign a minor league deal with the Blue Jays after his release in 2021, but he did not make an appearance in the bigs for Toronto. That said, he raked over 101 plate appearances in Triple-A, slashing .374/.436/.747 in that small sample. The Giants were no doubt encouraged by that showing.
Is there a good source to find out the financials of contracts signed in international leagues?
Yes.
https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/league-info/international-players/
Here you go grandpa, I used the Google for you.
Good luck to Gregory. He has a chance to show that he can be a DH if they use him as a DH there. He is done as a fielder because he can not throw hard anymore after he,tore up his shoulder in his horrific slide. Still is accurate but what was once a cannon from the outfield is now a BB gun. He could make up for miscues in fielding by keeping. runners from taking extra bases. Only the slowest of the slow on the base paths won’t run on Gregory.
36 million in earnings for a guy born in the Dominican Republic. Not too shabby. Maybe he’s done in MLB maybe not. Either way he’s going to be just fine financially. I also understand he probably just has a percentage of those earnings after agents and taxes (even though I’ll admit I’ve never cared to look up how much international players get taxed on a MLB payroll).
They get taxed on where they play, not where they live
Best of luck!
Good luck Gregory! You always hustled, always smiling. Would love to see you stay healthy and get your swing back. Enjoy Japan!
Gregory Polanco always hustled? Not on defense or on the base paths.
I really thought he was a future stud when he came up a few years ago. Envisioning a few years of Cutch, Marte and Polanco gave every Pirates fan some optimism for the future
I have to wonder about the development of players under the old front office. The fact that he never seemed to learn to play right field, could never pick up pitch spin or discipline himself where the strike zone was concerned and his atrocious base running numbs the mind. Sure, players Bear responsibility but you can only wonder about the techniques used
If it’s true he was an incredibly hard worker, then it had to be injuries that kept pushing him back
Hope he does well in his new home. Good guy
Oh what could’ve been. I remember seeing him play in AAA and he hit a rocket off the wall and thinking I’m watching the next Dave Parker.
Needless to say, I was wrong. All I can say is baseball is hard.
So close to the 100 hr 100 sb club. Wonder how many people would be on that list
Nice signing for Yomiuri. I look forward to seeing him play next year.
Wow! That was an insane 101 PA stretch at the AAA level. Maybe he still has something left in the tank. Best of luck to “El Coffee”.
Can’t miss future star is the most heard untruth in baseball.At 1 time his value was as high as you can imagine.
Didn’t this guy get popped for PEDS? Do they test overseas for PEDS?
That was Jorge Polanco
It was, but he also part of a hoax from a fake ESPN Twitter account account that apparently accused him of getting caught. Weird
He’ll rake in Japan.
All I can picture is one of those Zen gardens that sit on a desk with him raking the sand.
We need him here to rake our National Forests due to climate change and all.
Always like Polanco. Looked like a total stud in his uni. Never put it all together. Agree with previous poster, thought he’d be the next Dave Parker, or maybe Al Oliver.
Hope he does well in Japan and can play in the majors again. Some guys are late bloomers.
I remember when Polanco was tearing AAA up, but the Pirates wouldn’t bring him up because they wanted the extra year of control. He was hitting like .450 through the first 2 months!! I have a feeling that he’s going to tear it up over there and end up coming back.
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