Gregory Polanco is in the big leagues and it's really exposed some things about Pirate fans that less subjective viewers of the team have probably noticed.
Pirate fans are extremely, extremely over emotional and don't factor in logic and reason too often. I don't even think I need to talk about how ridiculous it was to think that the Pirates weren't doing the right thing holding Polanco down until they were actually sure they would miss the cut off for Super 2. Give me a break. It's been talked about enough and it's over now - so let's move on.
The main problem now is that since he's been called up everybody acts like he's a sure fire hall of famer. There's nothing wrong with getting a little bit over excited about a guy who's never seen a big league pitch yet, but comparing a guy to Barry Bonds before he's ever taken batting practice in a Major League Baseball field? It's one thing to say that stuff about someone like Bryce Harper who was highly coveted and covered since he was 15 years old - but Polanco doesn't fall into that category. Sure, he couldn't have gotten that kind of exposure since he wasn't raised in the USA - just look at his minor league numbers. He didn't play more than 60 games until 2012, and nobody even knew his name until at least then anyways.
In that 2012 season he hit .325/.388/.522 with 16 HR and 40 SB in 116 games. Fantastic numbers. That's when people started taking notice, however he was doing it in low-A West Virginia which doesn't get any real scouts too excited. Next up was 2013 where he played in A+, AA, and then 2 games in AAA. In A+ he hit .312/.364/.472 in 57 games which got him promoted to AA, where he actually struggled. He hit .263/.354/.407 in 68 games in Altoona and didn't give Pirate fans much of a reason to be anxious to see him in the big leagues coming into the 2013 season. It wasn't until spring training this year that people actually thought about Polanco wearing a Pirate uniform. He had a great spring and that's when this all started. A handful of more head in butt fans were calling for him to start the year with the Bucs, which was just ridiculous and brushed off mainly. Then the Pirates struggled for the first several weeks of the season and people became GM's again. They looked down to the AAA stats (his first year in AAA mind you) and saw Polanco having no problem with pitching down there - and he immediately became the solution to every problem they're precious professional sports team was having - which in turn became personal problem affecting their every day lives.
Polanco hit a ridiculous .347/.405/.540 in AAA and got his promotion right when he should have. Now he's almost expected to put up all-star level numbers despite being 22 years old and all new to this hyped up prospect thing.
Then Tim Williams broke some bad news that he was going to be promoted, which turned out no to be true, and people wanted to burn him at the stake. I googled that expression to make sure it was 'stake' and we weren't really burning people with cow meat. Williams let out an almost pathetic apology post where he said that he was so upset about reporting false news that he thought about quitting blogging (his full time job)?! What the hell?
It's silly. Despite it being silly, it's entertaining and it makes sports more interesting. Complaining about things on social media is stupid because if you wanted it to go away you could simply just stop looking at it - but at this point it's like a sore tooth that you can't stop sucking air into. I'm sure people have always been like this, but these days you can see it first hand, and it can get frustrating.
The point is, it's just a sport. Let Polanco develop, realize he's a human being and only one of 25 on this team, and stop letting sports affect your every day lives so much.
I'll try to post more angry thoughts about the Pirates as soon as I have some.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)