Heyyyy, it's Jorge Polanco
Some words on the Mariners' second/last moderately-sized move of the offseason.
When we last left off, I said the Mariners should get on with their one or two more menial moves and be on to spring training already. Well, Jorge Polanco is back and, because time ticks on unrelenting, pitchers and catchers report in a week. And the roster is probably set.
I was gonna cram a bunch of stuff into one post, Polanco and the Jerry quote stuff but let’s not. We’re going to get this out and hit the quotes and the 10,000-foot view of the offseason in another post Thursday or Friday.
Given the context of the offseason to date and the infielders present on this roster as of a week ago, it’s better the Mariners added Jorge Polanco than if they didn’t add Jorge Polanco.
Right?
Probably.
Hopefully.
I think so.
The details of the deal came out yesterday and gave us, perhaps, a bit more context on the M’s’ enthusiasm for a reunion and Polo’s leverage despite coming off a pretty brutal year.
A full no-trade clause this year and a pretty nice player option that vests at a pretty reasonable threshold? Sure the Mariners maybe had to pay a smidge more to get him to try to bounce back in Seattle and play a mostly new position but we’re talking about such slim differences with a player like this.
He signed for what back-from-the-dead Gary Sánchez signed for in the big 2025.
The Mariners have so little money that when they sign a player for marginally more than a minimally viable Major Leaguer would sign for, it’s noticeable. It’s a tough scene.
What would make this a tougher scene though would be if, while signing Polanco kept him away from the Astros, it pushed the Astros towards bringing back Alex Bregman. We’ll hope that isn’t the case despite it feeling like a very Mariner outcome.
Hell, maybe Polanco as a Mariner is better than Bregman as an Astro in 2025. That’d be funny.
There’s reason for both hope and unease.
About those injuries…
I can understand why Mariners fans are optimistic. It’s February, after all. Literally all of the baseball is out in front of us.
Plus, Polanco is a fun player to be optimistic about. He’s a switch-hitter, for one. Always cool. Plus he hits the piss out of the ball when he connects, and does so from a position that doesn’t always have a lot of power.
Now he will play a different position.
He’ll play a different position because he had offseason knee surgery and third base, theoretically, cuts down on how much he has to move and makes that “range” detail less of a problem. Step and a dive, things of that nature.
While the Mariners will protect the knee (kind of a reason for concern, no?), it’s also a now-treated injury that had supposedly bothered him for years. And that is…a reason for optimism.
With this type of thing, all the noise tends to complicate things.
While the knee has been barking on Polanco for a couple years now, including shutting him down at the end of 2022 and even going into 2023, it hasn’t been his only ailment—he’s gone down on account of hamstrings, a bum ankle and his back.
He did play in 153 games in 2019 and 152 in 2021 before the knee started causing those problems in ‘22.
Still, he’s a player with injury troubles and, like all of us, he’s getting older. A lot times people completely separate age concerns and injury concerns but those things go hand in hand, to the point where, for players on the wrong side of 30, they’re synonymous.
Still, spring is the time to hope a guy is better than he’s been in years.
He’s still mostly the guy we were moderately excited about last year
If that isn’t damning with faint praise—
Around these parts last year, we kinda liked the Polanco move. At least, most of it.
Under the hood, you could see Polanco was productive when he was on the field. But I mentioned even then that age and injuries could bite him in 2024 and, welp, they most certainly did.
He, like then, bolsters the middle-ish part of the roster. It’s still not good, but it’s better than it was.
The projections agree with most fans, that he will bounce back and be better than he was last year. But it’s not, like, some amazing player.
FanGraphs Depth Charts—again,the amalgamation of a couple of their systems—has him as a 103 wRC+ bat, up a good bit from his 92 last year. Even that would make a difference for a team looking to just cover up some sidewalk sinkholes with plywood, but you can’t blame these projections for thinking he bounces back to his prime at 32, coming off knee surgery.
Dare to dream though, I guess. Past performance isn’t always the most predictive, especially with aging players, but I think whether or not you’ve done a thing—like, have a real good, quality, full MLB season—helps to convince me the right conditions could again be present and have you do it again.
The last time Jorge Polanco had a fully healthy season, playing 152 games in, he posted a 124 wRC+ and a four-win campaign. It was also four years ago but details, details.
If you’re looking for more, check out this piece on FanGraphs from Michael Rosen. He has an interesting take on why third base could particularly be good for Polanco and some commentary on the bigger picture.
Like I said, we’ll hit on the bigger picture again, with those Jerry quotes, in another piece Thursday or Friday.
Until then, Go M’s.
Glad you are able to suppress earlyseason fake optimism on the immortal Jorge Polanco, Colin.
Here's a question for Dipoto et al if you get a chance: "did the underperforming Garver and Hanniger contracts force the M's to not invest in 2025 infield because it's likely M's 2025 depends on Hanniger & Garver?
I'm too lazy to look but didn’t Josh Rojas have a higher 2024 WAR than Jorge? Jorge better than Rojas? B.S.
Don't understand the Rojas cut unless Rojas wanted out. He was gold glove and did ok at leadoff when JP was injured. Why M's immediately put JP back at leadoff after return from injury is worth asking Servais now that Servais is w/Padres. Servais is not that dumb - real teams make injury returns hit their way back up.
JP's post return hitting sucked.
Polanco looked like a statue fielding 2nd on hot stuff. 3rd will be even hotter.
Here's a real question to raise up the media flagpole:
Would current owners consider selling the M's? If "No", then "why a chronic lack of investment in 1st tier position players? Would current owners welcome additional partners to.increase investment and spread risk?
I see current ownership playing out the T-Mobile lease and putting M's on the block, like Schultz did w/Sonics.
Stanton et al are lightweights, like Schultz.