Why should you care about Gregory Polanco?

As we approached this year's non-waiver trade deadline, we kept hearing that Neal Huntington was reluctant to part with a Top-6 prospect in a trade. Most folks assumed that it meant that Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, Starling Marte, Josh Bell, Luis Heredia and Alen Hanson were off the table. There is one name that did not get bandied about much, though, that could have been part of that conversation: Gregory Polanco.

Like Alen Hanson, Polanco is having a breakout year in low-A ball in West Virginia. Also like Hanson, he was signed as an International Free Agent out of the Dominican Republic in 2009. As a shortstop in a system barren of middle infielders, Hanson has understandably gotten more of the attention, but Polanco, a center fielder, is another 5-tool talent on the rise. This year he is hitting .326/.389/.511 with 13 home runs, 76 runs batted in and 40 stolen bases. Those are video game numbers. He's also just 20 years old, so he still might be growing physically. He has even shown considerable plate patience this year with 40 walks and only 61 strikeouts in 436 plate appearances.

Writers and analysts are starting to take notice, too. Tim Williams of Pirates Prospects was one of the first to praise him and currently has Polanco ranked fifth among all pirates prospects. Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus was asked on Twitter recently if he considered putting Alen Hanson in his midseason Top-50 list. He indicated that he did consider Hanson, but also Polanco. He later confirmed that he currently rates Gregory Polanco ahead of Hanson.

Polanco and Hanson are both products of the new Dominican Academy that was built by the Pirates at the urging of owner Bob Nutting. Starling Marte, who recently homered in his major league debut, was the first "graduate" of that academy. The Pirates have not had this kind of influence and success in Latin American in decades and hopefully Marte, Polanco and Hanson are just the tip of the iceberg. I think you'll be hearing a lot more of Polanco in the not-too-distant future and that's a real testament to the investment the Pirates have made in recent years in the Dominican Republic.