Darkstone42
Oh.
With positive developments from Neil Walker and Pedro Alvarez and the acquisition of an actual platoon partner for Gaby, it's time to turn our attention to RF.
Polanco rights have been retained now. He would probably be a super 2 and therefore have to be paid the arbitration rate for one season instead of the pre-arb rookie salary. Probably the difference between a million dollars and 13-17 million dollars, so it is not a negligible expense.
On the other hand that expense is not money spent for no reason at all. You would gain 2 months of polanco that you wouldn't otherwise have. It would give him an opportunity to settle in at the major-league level and perhaps compete for a rookie of the year award. You could also easily find yourself slipping out of the playoff race if you wait 2 more months.
So by committing to spend an extra 12-15 million dollars you gain 2 extra months of Polanco and you put yourself in a better position to compete for a playoff spot.
If the Pirates were a cellar-dwelling team you can be sure that even I wouldn't be calling for his promotion - but the Pirates could really use another good outfielder right now. I also happen to have good reason to believe that the front office had 12 to 15 million dollars available in the budget that wasn't spent. The money spent paying Polanco would be the money that had been set aside for whatever offer they made to AJ Burnett.
As for the starting pitching situation. Starting to get a little ugly already. Taillon is already injured and Wandy is both shitty AND on the disabled list. Liriano hasn't been as effective as in '13 and his velocity is down slightly.
We're already talking about pimentel and cumpton as spot starters, so it's possible that we're about to be in trouble. If Volquez's early results are just a temporary thing then we could be in big doo-doo really soon.
I'm not terribly worried about Liriano, Morton, and Cole. I think they've all pitched better than their results. But Volquez is going to make me nervous for at least another month (though if he keeps the walks down like he has, he'll stay effective, I think), and we need a reliable fifth.
I would also be in favor of bringing up Polanco early, but largely because the Pirate front office has shown they can get long-term deals done early with their talented young outfielders. We may never even have to pay that extra money. Snider and Tabata have both been pretty good so far this season, though, and it would be tough to just eliminate their playing time altogether. Both are still useful, but do you really want to carry two backup outfielders who can't play anywhere else? One of them may find himself in a package for something, perhaps a pitcher or a short stop if Mercer continues to struggle.