{"id":16062,"date":"2019-01-24T13:42:17","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T18:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=16062"},"modified":"2019-01-24T13:42:17","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T18:42:17","slug":"a-j-pollock-signs-five-year-deal-with-dodgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2019\/01\/24\/a-j-pollock-signs-five-year-deal-with-dodgers\/","title":{"rendered":"A.J. Pollock Signs Five-Year Deal with Dodgers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another top outfielder has found a new home, as reports indicate former Arizona Diamondback <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/polloaj01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A.J. Pollock<\/a> will go to the Los Angeles Dodgers on a five-year deal worth around $55. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic was first to report the deal on Twitter:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Dodgers?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Dodgers<\/a> in agreement with free-agent outfielder A.J. Pollock, pending physical, sources tell The Athletic. Terms of deal not known.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ken_Rosenthal\/status\/1088490372005855232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 24, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>A.J. Pollock&#8217;s 2018<\/h3>\n<p>Pollock had a productive 2018, slashing .257\/.316\/.484 with 21 home runs and 13 steals. His .228 ISO ranked third among CF (18th for OF overall), and he set a new career high for home runs. He struggled after the All-Star Break (.233\/.290\/.410), muting his final numbers after a strong first half (.285\/.348\/.575). Health was also an issue for Pollock, as he missed more than 40 games for the third straight season, this time due to a broken thumb.<\/p>\n<p>Defensively, Pollock was mostly above average, though DRS and UZR differed on his performance. Per DRS, Pollock was one of only six CF&#8217;s to register a positive rating (6 DRS) in 2018. UZR, on the other hand, gave Pollock a slightly negative mark (-0.7 UZR) that left him 12th for CF in that metric. His rARM rating plummeted, rating -6 rARM, a substantial decrease over the -1 rARM mark he posted in 2017.<\/p>\n<h2>Analysis of the Signing<\/h2>\n<p>In Pollock, the Dodgers add a veteran center fielder with a history of above-average offensive and defensive production, when healthy. While Pollock has proven that he can be a special part of any lineup, his age (31) and recent inability to stay healthy (249 games missed from 2016 &#8211; 2018) make this deal a risky endeavor for the Dodgers.<\/p>\n<p>If he can stay on the field, Pollock should provide a good offensive mix for the Dodgers, and could be a candidate to offer more power moving forward if he maintains some of the adjustments he showed last season (+6.3% FB%, +5.4% Pull%, +9.5% Hard%, +4.4% Barrel%).<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"OLzvbSn4Q_p_mIUvUtJ4sA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1041478252\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'OLzvbSn4Q_p_mIUvUtJ4sA',sig:'jlzs5nxP0gN4H7SaLPqjoUSV4a6rQ-QoCmh2glO7J9k=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1041478252',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another top outfielder has found a new home, as reports indicate former Arizona Diamondback A.J. Pollock will go to the Los Angeles Dodgers on a five-year deal worth around $55. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic was first to report the deal on Twitter: #Dodgers in agreement with free-agent outfielder A.J. Pollock, pending physical, sources tell [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2868,"featured_media":16592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,33],"tags":[2299,92],"class_list":["post-16062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-dodgers","tag-aj-pollock","tag-los-angeles-dodgers"],"modified_by":"John Flanigan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2868"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}