MLB Rumors: Los Angeles Dodgers, A.J. Pollock have agreement, per report

MLB Rumors: The Los Angeles Dodgers and A.J. Pollock, a free agent outfielder, have reached an agreement on a deal pending a physical, per Ken Rosenthal on Twitter. Pollock, 31, has spent his career with the Arizona Diamondbacks since being their first round pick out of Notre Dame in 2009.

Pollock has been a quality player when he’s been healthy, but he’s struggled to stay on the field — he had a 7.2 bWAR in 2015, but that is the only season he’s had at least 500 plate appearances. A solid two-way center fielder when he’s on the field, he was seen as one of the best options on the non-Harper/Machado tier of free agents this offseason.

The Dodgers had been rumored for a while to be in on Pollock, and with their overall depth, they would seem to be in a position to be able to rest him and weather his injury-related absences moreso than most other teams. The Dodgers were rumored to be poised to deal center fielder Joc Pederson if they signed Pollock.

Jeff Passan says that the team and player had been discussing a five year, $60 million deal, though he doesn’t know if that’s the actual deal. Even though Pollock had a qualifying offer attached, and thus costs a draft pick, and even though he has an injury history, that’s a smaller deal than I would have expected, although Jon Heyman’s predictions had him getting 3 years at $14-15 million per year.

UPDATE — Bob Nightengale says it is a 4 year, $50 million deal “filled with incentives, escalators and opt-outs.”

UPDATE II — Per Ken Rosenthal, the deal has a potential opt-out for Pollock after Year Three, is guaranteed for $50 million over four years, and there’s a player option for $10 million in Year Five that has a $5 million buyout. So if Pollock doesn’t exercise the Year Three opt-out and declines the player option, its a four year, $55 million deal, which ends up being $13.75M per year for four years.