Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Pittsburgh Pirates have sent Gregory Polanco to Triple-A. The move will be short-term, as the minor league season only has a week left. As he says in the tweet below, no corresponding move has been announced.
Source: #Pirates send Polanco to AAA. No word yet on corresponding move. Figures to be short-term demotion; rosters expand Monday.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 25, 2014
Polanco has a .241/.308/.349 line in 249 at-bats this season. He has been struggling lately, going 1-for-30 in the last few weeks. In that time he has been losing playing time to Travis Snider in right field, with Snider having the hot bat. There was a lot of focus on Super 2 status when Polanco was first called up. The demotion to Triple-A until the end of their season makes it less likely that Polanco will be Super 2 eligible. If he is called up on September 2nd (the day after Indianapolis ends their season), then he will finish the season with 104 days of service time.
I can’t imagine what Polanco will learn in a week at Triple-A, so this move seems to be a move to prevent him from wasting service time in the majors while he is being benched for Snider. It might seem strange to focus on Super 2 with the way he has played this year, although there have been a lot of projected impact players who have struggled initially, only to return with much better numbers their second year in pro ball. The Super 2 focus was always a long-term thing, and never about what Polanco could do immediately.