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Prospect Highlights: Some Productive Plate Appearances From Tito Polo

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The other day we posted an article about Tito Polo that was very popular, highlighting the 19-year-old, five-tool outfielder, who is looking like the best player on the GCL Pirates right now. In that article, I mentioned that we would have better videos of him soon, which was a bit presumptuous on my part, because that meant he needed to have a good game at home on a day someone was there shooting video. Well, it didn’t take long for Polo to keep up his end of the bargain.

In Tuesday’s GCL Pirates game, Polo had a single, double, sacrifice fly and a walk. We got video of three of those four plate appearances courtesy of the GCL Pirates fan page, plus an added video below from Tuesday. Polo is hitting .339/.425/.548 through 18 games this year, with three stolen bases and three outfield assists. He is sixth in the GCL in batting, seventh in slugging and fourth in OPS, leading Pirates players in all three categories.

Polo is someone I mentioned often during the Winter League season, as he played in the Colombian Winter League. He was seeing decent playing time, mostly against players with much more experience, including a handful of Major League players. He was in the same outfield as Harold Ramirez, who became a top ten prospect in the Pirates system last year after the season he had in the NYPL. I also got great reports from the DSL last year on Polo, with health concerns the only thing holding him back. Three times last year he missed time with hamstring issues, which he has seemed to overcome between Winter ball and the GCL season. Polo is in tremendous shape and could really blossom into a legit prospect quickly with the skill set he possesses.

Below are three of the quality plate appearances from Tuesday(plus a fourth video), so you can get a better look at Polo, starting with his double in the third inning that scored Cole Tucker.

Sacrifice fly. Pitcher goes heavy with the breaking balls early in this long plate appearance.

The walk.

Fielder’s choice in the 8th inning.

 

John Dreker
John Dreker
John started working at Pirates Prospects in 2009, but his connection to the Pittsburgh Pirates started exactly 100 years earlier when Dots Miller debuted for the 1909 World Series champions. John was born in Kearny, NJ, two blocks from the house where Dots Miller grew up. From that hometown hero connection came a love of Pirates history, as well as the sport of baseball. When he didn't make it as a lefty pitcher with an 80+ MPH fastball and a slider that needed work, John turned to covering the game, eventually focusing in on the prospects side, where his interest was pushed by the big league team being below .500 for so long. John has covered the minors in some form since the 2002 season, and leads the draft and international coverage on Pirates Prospects. He writes daily on Pittsburgh Baseball History, when he's not covering the entire system daily throughout the entire year on Pirates Prospects.

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