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DD Negotiations
I still maintain DD is downplaying Polly and lifting up Mister Broken Ankle, as a negotiation ploy to try to get Polly and his agent to lower their asking price and number of years. I still feel, Polly can continue to play at the level he's been at for the past 2 seasons, for the next 3 years because he takes good care of himself. Yes, he's had injuries but not for the past 3 years, where's he's given the Tigers 629 or more plate appearancesin each of those years.
I disagree Polly is a 310 to 315 hitter, but I do think he's a low 300 hitter. I actually thought that he was going to pull off a big average rise in the last month or two in 2009, like Maggs did. As I recall, Polly did get up over 290 for a game or two, then finished at 285. But again, I really do think that this is all a big negotiation ploy by the Tigers. Don't be surprised if Polly signs back on with Detroit for 2 years, with a club option for a third season, at 6M a year, of if DD has played his cards right, 5 to 5.5M a year. Still a pay raise over the 4.6M Polly made in each of the last 5 seasons, 1 in Philly, 4 in D-Town.
I saw one poster yesterday say Polly is a good double play turner. We found out a few weeks ago, that Mister Broken Ankle is not. How many times over the last 4 years have you seen Polly get wiped out by a runner, barrelling into second, but Polly still got the throw away cleanly to first, completing the double play. He was second among league second basemen in turning DP's this season with 115. I've seen teams in the past flounder badly because they could not turn a double play!
Many have railed on all of the "ground ball" pitchers the Tigers had this year, which would raise Polly's assist totals, to where he was second in the league. Well, I saw only one sinker ball pitcher on the Tigers, a snot nosed kid named Porcello and Porky's presence was not going to raise Polly's assist total to the highest of his 12 MLB year career. It was also not going to raise his double play totals significantly. It's negotiation time folks and that's just what DD is doing, negotiating in the media.
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