Seattle Mariners’ Jorge Polanco watches his three run home run take flight off Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Louis Varland during the fifth inning in Game 2 of baseball’s American League Championship Series, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, in Toronto. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
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Position player career arcs take a finite number of forms, and coming into to 2025, it appeared that Mariners’ DH Jorge Polanco was approaching the end of one of the more common ones.
A switch-hitter, Polanco had longed derived offensive value from lifting and pulling the baseball. Your basic launch angle guy. This enabled him to generate solid extra base pop for a middle infielder, allowing him to remain a viable middle infield starter despite defensive limitations and subpar batted ball authority. Over the years, he moved the wrong way on the defensive spectrum, from shortstop to second base, as players of his ilk typically do, and his all-around game began to fray around the edges. His ability to make contact waned, and he took a big physical hit when he injured his left patellar tendon in 2024. It was a legitimate concern that his career might have reached its end.
He languished on the free agent market for much of last offseason before signing a one-year, $7.75 million deal to return to Seattle. At that moment in time, no one could have envisioned his resurgent 2025 campaign in which he hit ..265-.326-.495 with 26 home runs, following it up with a two-homer game against Tarik Skubal in the ALDS and multiple keys hits in the first two games of the ALCS, including a three-run homer that gave the M’s the lead for good in Game 2.
But it goes way beyond the surface numbers with Polanco – it’s how he’s done it. No longer is he simply looking to drive the ball in the air. He’s hitting his line drives and ground balls harder than he ever has, and most importantly of all, he’s making infinitely more contact.
Polanco has literally cut his strikeout rate in half, a remarkable accomplishment in this day and age. His K rate nearly doubled from 15.5% in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season to 29.8% in 2024, and he turned the clock five years this season, cutting it back to 15.6%. This is basically unprecedented.
He has had seasons with higher average fly ball exit speeds than his 91.4 mph 2025 mark – 93.1 mph in 2021 (when he hit a career high 33 homers) and 93.4 mph in 2023. But coming into 2025, never had a season with above average liner exit speed – it had topped out in the league average range at 93.7 mph in 2021. In 2025, it spiked up to 96.4 mph, about a full standard deviation above league average. His average grounder exit speed was only as high as the league average range once prior to 2025, at 84.6 mph in the truncated 2020 season. In 2025, it jumped to 87.4 mph, over a half standard deviation above league average. His average launch angle of 16.5 degrees, while still high, is also his lowest since 2020. He’s making better swing decisions with a more level, though still pull-oriented stroke.
He has literally saved his career by making these adjustments. Still, the now 32-year-old Polanco is closer to the end than the beginning of stint in the majors. His defensive value is now marginal at best – he’s a passable 2B defender who primarily logged time in the DH role this seaso. He is rarely allowed to face lefties at this stage of his career – the vast majority of his damage comes from the left side of the plate.
But he is a legitimate threat when he comes to the plate against righthanded pitching, and in the Mariner lineup that is a huge deal. It lengthens the middle of their order, and can make the opposition pay for pitching around Mariner stars Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodriguez. Just ask the Tigers and Blue Jays.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tonyblengino/2025/10/15/unheralded-lcs-players-mariners-2b-jorge-polanco/
