If there is one thing that you probably should not do after the first game of the season, it’s attempt to assign meaning to anything that happens on the field (other than injuries, of course). That being said, if all goes as expected, the competition in the NL Central looks to be brutal this year. After all, this is the division that produced the three best records in baseball in 2015, with the Cardinals, Pirates and Cubs separated by a measly three wins at 100, 98 and 97. So, needless to say, wins against your division rivals are important.

It was a good day for the Pittsburgh Pirates then, who not only beat the Cardinals 4 to 1, with Francisco Liriano striking out ten and attempting to silence proponents of the expanding the DH by driving in the first run of the MLB season. Gregory Polanco went 2-for-3 with a walk and two runs scored in his first outing of 2016. More important than Polanco’s performance on the field yesterday, however, was the news about Polanco that surfaced after the game, that the Pirates have extended their 24-year old right fielder. While the final details should be announced shortly, Ken Rosenthal indicated that it is a five-year, $35 million contract with two team options which, if exercised, bring the total value of the deal to seven years and $60 million. Polanco was previously set to be a free agent in four years, so the extension buys out his remaining service time and extends him for a year through his age 28 season, with two team options after that.

In Polanco’s 2014 debut, in 89 games, he may have hit 7 home runs and stole 14 bases, but he hit .235/.307/.343 overall, for a 29 wRC, 0.3 fWAR and -0.1 WAR, and ended up being spending time in AAA down the stretch. 2015 went better for Polanco and he is coming off a season where he hit .256/.320/.381, good for an 92 OPS+ and 2.6 bWAR and 2.3 fWAR. When you look at his campaign by month, he can see how much potential is there if Polanco is able to hit consistently. While hoping for Polanco to become the player he was in August of 2015, where he hit .330/.500/.880 is probably unrealistic (the .386 BABIP is probably not sustainable long-term), Polanco put up great numbers over half of the season which were brought down by his other three months. Overall, Polanco is a former top prospect who hasn’t quite put it all together in the majors yet, but he certainly showed signs of improving for a long stretch in the second half of the season last year.

For the Pirates, locking up their players pre-arbitration has become the lifeblood of the team and its ability to keep coming back to the playoffs, even if it seems to perpetually be a Wild Card spot due to the tooth-and-nail nature of the division. Andrew McCutchen’s six-year, $51.5 million contract, which he signed in 2012 bought out his remaining service time and tacked on a couple of years as well as a team option for $14.5 million in 2018, is unquestionably one of the best contracts in all of baseball, with McCutchen putting up 19.3 bWAR in the three years since he signed. Starling Marte’s six-year, $31 million contract, which takes him through 2019 with two team options for 2020 and 2021, has also been a resounding success, with Marte putting up 10.4 bWAR in the two years since he signed. If the low-payroll Pirates are going to continue to play October baseball, they absolutely need these sort of contracts on the books.

Grade for Polanco: A-

Polanco has yet to deliver a season the likes of which both Marte and McCutchen had prior to the contract extensions they signed. While Polanco certainly has the tools, we’re still waiting on him to put it together over an entire season. Even if Polanco never does, he’s a much richer man. If he does break out and have his team options exercised? He’ll still only be 30 years old, so he’ll certainly be in line to tack on to the $60 million he already made. He might have held out until he did break out a bit more, but security is what it is.

Grade for Pirates: B+

The Pirates are certainly gambling on Polanco more than they did when they signed McCutchen and Marte to their extensions. Polanco hasn’t yet had a breakout season, something that his fellow outfielders already had on their resumes. Then again, Polanco doesn’t have to even improve very much from last season for the contract to be a win for the Bucs. He’s only 24, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Polanco finally find his power stroke and become more consistent at both sides of the plate.

While the move is a bit riskier than the other two outfielder extensions, the Pirates get an extra three of years out of Polanco that they wouldn’t be able to afford once he reached free agency and they make sure that they have the outfield around McCutchen locked up even as the team negotiates with him about an extension to keep one of the best outfields in baseball together. When you have consistently have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball, you have to get creative in order to stay competitive, and this move certainly seems to be the right amount of risk versus reward.