If you claim that you knew who A.J. Pollock was at this time last year and you live outside of the Mojave Desert, you are probably lying. But if you don’t know him now, you must not follow baseball too closely. The MVP candidate and 2015 All-Star and Gold Glover broke onto the scene with a .315/.367/.498 line this year, astounding fans with 39 steals, 20 home runs, and great play in center field. It’s no surprise that everyone would now be interested in the slugger, but despite the rumors, the Diamondbacks don’t seem to keen on selling.
Beyond the player himself, the Diamondbacks just simply aren’t in the selling mood. Even after finishing in last place in 2014, Arizona was looking to build rather than destroy and after a promising 79-83 finish in 2015, they look primed for an attempt on the NL West. They finished just five games behind the Giants for second and should be even better next season with their two MVP quality players still in their primes and even greater expectations for a rotation that included a breakout season by Robbie Ray, the return from the Didi Gregorius trade to New York. With a relatively new front office and plenty of young, cost controlled players, there is little reason for Arizona to begin a rebuild right now. In fact, there probably won’t be one for awhile considering that Goldschmidt is under contract through 2019 for extremely cheap and only Aaron Hill and Brad Ziegler will become free agents after next season.
Despite this, there are plenty of teams grasping at Pollock and the most recent was Atlanta who apparently asked for him in exchange for Shelby Miller. The fact that the Diamondbacks were investigating Miller shows just how much they are not trying to break up the club. While not a real “rumor”, last week Anthony Castrovince postulated that the Indians might be willing to trade Carlos Carrasco for Pollock. This further shows the danger and futility in simply making stuff up in lieu of actual player movement.
The 7.4 WAR player in 2015 is on a completely different page, however. Much more likely than any trade is an extension as both the team and player have shown interest in making this arrangement more permanent:
Dave Stewart said he has spoken to AJ Pollock to gauge his interest in a possible extension. Pollock likes it here, wants to stay.
— Nick Piecoro (@nickpiecoro) October 5, 2015
Pollock is already under team control through 2018, but will be entering his first year of arbitration this year and both parties have reasons (to guarantee money for Pollock, to save money for the DBacks) to get a deal done now. Based on extensions from around the league for similar players, this could very well mean a four year deal with a team option at the end to take him through all of arbitration and at least one year of free agency. Since he wants to stay and Arizona obviously agrees, this seems like something very probable to occur this off-season.
According to MLB Trade Rumors’ arbitration projections, Pollock is due a substantial raise this year, possibly in the range of $4-5M, but considering what he has been worth on the field for the past three seasons, that would be a steal. Outfielders much older than A.J. and no where near his talent could look at bringing in three times that amount per year through free agency.
To look back at the failed trade with the Braves, Miller was just traded last offseason for a single year of Jason Heyward. There is little question that the Braves got the better of this deal as Miller is under control through 2019, but continuing that line of thought, if five years of Miller is only worth one year of Heyward, how could four years of Miller be worth three of Pollock. Heyward is younger than Pollock and has been slightly more productive (16.5 WAR in past three seasons compared to 14.8 for Pollock), but there is no way one year of Heyward is worth more than three of Pollock. Of course, there could be more to either deal, but even still, it doesn’t make much sense on the Diamondbacks side.
Because of his extreme value right now, it would be extremely hard for the Diamondbacks to find a match for Pollock and because of their need for offense, even attempting to defies logic.
