2025 Mariners Review: Jorge Polanco — My Favorite Redemption Arc

2025 Mariners Review: Jorge Polanco — My Favorite Redemption Arc

Just a warning, there are dog noises that are going to be happening in this video. And I don’t like recording this video. I was hoping I was going to get to do it a little later, but the Mariners no longer have Jorge Palano on their baseball team. So, we got to talk about it. He is reportedly signing a 2-year $40 million deal with the New York Mets. And I’m bummed. I’m bummed. And I was just thinking about and I I posted something about this on Blue Sky, but I never thought I’d be bummed losing Jorge Palano after how poorly 2024 went. I’ll tell you that much. But I’m bummed. This is a big loss for the Seattle Mariners. And if you are a New York Mets fan who is like, “Hey, what are we getting here?” You’re getting a good baseball player and you’re getting a good person. If you’re a vibes person, I think Jorge Palano is someone it’s a little weird. Sometimes there’s some facial expressions that are a little uh different, but clearly a player who was very wellliked by his teammates, and I think it’s a nifty piece of business. No, he’s not Pete Alonzo, but he’s a really good baseball player and someone who’s going to help you offensively quite a bit. Uh going over the stats for Jorge Palano last year, of course, I have the splits up and not the actual stats. He is a guy who in 138 games last year hit 265, 326, 495 with 26 homers over 138 games and 524 played appearances. Also stole six bases and nine attempts and he drove in 78 runs if you’re into that sort of thing. Now, let’s compare that to 2024 where he hits 213, 296, 355. Let’s go all the way back to when the Mariners make the trade. They make the move for Jorge Blanco because they think they finally have their long-term second baseman. They have the guy who for at least two years is going to be a massive helper. Well, it doesn’t work out. It doesn’t work out at all. And he has a team option declined. He tests the free agent waters. He doesn’t find a whole lot. The Yankees make an offer. I know that the Astros make an offer, but it’s not a ton. And then Seattle says, “All right, let’s try it. Let’s try you at third base.” And third base didn’t last very long. He has a hip injury, but while dealing with that hip injury, really before it, but and then after it, Jorge Palano just rakes. Just absolutely rakes. And I think that the splits for per month are really the story with Jorge Palco. Okay, so in the month of March, April baseball reference, stop listing it as April March. That’s weird. Holy crap. He hit 384418. Now obviously that’s not sustainable. That’s not even kind of sustainable. and he kind of pays for it. In May, he has a 413 ops. In June, he has a 582 ops. And people start wondering how much was it fluky in March, April. And the answer to that question is not really. I mean, that’s a 46 game sample of an OPS well below average, but in July it’s 8.88 88 in August it’s 792 and then in September October why do you list it September October but then list it April March you’re killing me baseball reference you’re killing me you are literally no you’re not but he he was so good 329 380 634 in those months and what’s interesting is yes He does miss some time. And it’s worth pointing out, you guys probably remember this, but if you’re a Mets fan who’s tuning in, you may not know that Jorge Palano had a long stretch where he could not swing the bat from the right side. Just couldn’t do it. So, he was only playing against right-handed pitching. And I can’t help but wonder what those numbers would have looked like if he could have because he swung the bat from the right side as well as he ever has. He was a 305 345 543 hitter and only 114 plate appearances. That’s remarkable. Pretty good against righties, too. 254, 321, 481, 21 homers. He was a good baseball player. So, the third base thing doesn’t work out. And he spends most of the year as the designated hitter. He does play some second base. And I have to be honest, I did not have high expectations for him at second base. He outplayed my expectations. Does doesn’t have anywhere close to elite range. Not even a smidgen, but he does the job well enough. Well enough. And well enough to justify him being in the lineup. That’s for damn sure. And then the postseason and we got to pull those stats up because boy oh boy they’re not the best but context matters here. He hit 18250 455 in the ALDS. He hit 231 286 385 in the ALCS. Three homers in the postseason. Um, total I believe was 69. No, that’s his career ops. Well, he’s played a lot more postseason games than I thought. Sometimes I forget the Twins. Number one, that he’s played a long time and number two that the Twins were pretty good when he was there. Um, Jorge Palano has one of the five biggest hits in Seattle Marin history. that single to end the game in the 15th inning. And yeah, the numbers aren’t great. These are well below average numbers really. That 705 OPS against Detroit will play 670. Not really. 67. Um, wow. I don’t think you can overstate how important Jorge Palano was for the Seattle Mariners. tell you right now, the Seattle Mariners do not win the division if not for Jorge Palano. Because outside of a stretch from the middle of May to the middle of June, Jorge Palano was as good of hitter not named Cal Raleigh on the team. Finishes second in OPS. And you know, Julio had a lot of great moments. If you had to ask me who the better hitter for the majority of the year was, pretty easily Jorge Palano. And that is much more compliment to Jorge Palano than insult to Julio Rodriguez. That should be fairly obvious, but let me just get it out of the way. Um, I really liked Jorge Palano. I I did not like Jorge Palano in 2024. I was not sad to see him go whatsoever. And I wasn’t jumping for joy when they brought him back. But Jorge Palano, and I’ve talked about this a lot, but I’ll do it again. This is what makes baseball the best sport in the world, because you get redemption arcs. You get redemption arcs, and I don’t think anyone had a better redemption arc than Jorge Palarco. Jorge Palanco what he did compared to the previous season. And if you want to argue that that’s a little bit just how bad he was in 2024, go for it. But I’ll take the positive here. Jorge Palano went from being one of the most hated Seattle Mariners, maybe the most hated Seattle Mariner outside of Colton Wong over the last three or four years. Tommy Lella might have something to say, too. He went from that to being one of the most popular Seattle Mariners. to a guy who is literally now a hero in Seattle because of that hit against Detroit. That stuff, you see it every once in a while in the other sports. You see it so much more often in baseball. It’s so much more prevalent. And it’s just awesome. It’s freaking awesome to watch guys like Palano rebound and to watch how much his teammates just loved him. into being such an important part of their success. I mean, Cal obviously the biggest thing. Julio because of his defense and, you know, the pitching and blah blah blah. Jorge Palano’s right there. He’s right there. Now, I’m going to miss him. And here’s the other thing. The Seattle Mariners are going to miss him because right now this team is not good enough. Not even close. They need to add a bat badly. Now, if you held some sort of weapon to my head, I would guess that that bat is going to be Brenda Donovan. It just makes too much sense. Just makes too much sense. But they got to do something because I’ll tell you this much. Your bottom three hitters cannot be Cole Young, Ben Williamson, and Victor Robless. That cannot make up a third of your lineup. And you include JP Crawford in there, that’s 44% of your lineup. That’s not good enough. That is not good enough. There’s plenty of time to fix it. Don’t get it twisted. I’m not screaming at the Mariners, how dare you not match this. I’m not saying that they’re screwed. Done that once before. That article got a lot of views, by the way. Um, they’ve got to go get another bat. Really? I think they got to go get two. I think they’re only going to get one. maybe another platoon piece. But right now, if the Seattle Mariners lined up to play a baseball game, your starting lineup would be, here’s how I think the lineup would go. You would have JP Crawford leading off, Cal Raleigh hitting second, um, Hulu hitting third, Josh Naylor hitting fourth, Randy Rosarina hitting fifth, Domone hitting sixth, um, Robles seven, Williamson eight, Cole Young nine in some order for the 7 8 9 doesn’t really matter. Um, that’s not good enough. And even adding a Brendan Donovan to that, while it improves it greatly, it don’t improve it enough, the only thing that is going to be acceptable for me for the Seattle Mariners in the year of our Lord 2026 is a trip to the World Series. Anything short of that is going to be a failure and an unacceptable one. And if you disagree with that, good for you. Have a happy holiday. Thanks so much for watching. I think your opinion is stupid. Just how I feel. That’s just how I feel. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Don’t even remember who sings that song. Molly, I get it. I get it. It’s boring. So, yeah. Jorge Palano, longish story shorter, thank you for everything. You know, I talked about you have to be grateful for the bad. I’m grateful for the bad with Jorge Palano in 2024 because it makes me appreciate the great in 2025 all that much more. And he was great for the overwhelming majority of the year. He was the hitter that I wanted up. He was absolutely the guy I wanted. There were some bad played appearances. And here’s what I’ll say to Mets fans. Um, he’s not a good defensive player. He I think he’ll be fine at first base. I think it makes a lot of sense for him to be the first baseman. Play some DAH, some third base in a pinch. Really can’t throw well enough, I think, to play third base. But you’re going to like him. Just be nice. Be nice to Jorge. We like Jorge. It took us a little while, but we we like Jorge. I’d like if you hit like and subscribe. I’d like to know if you agree with me on the bottom of this lineup right now. And uh yeah, should have some more uh next week with the holidays. Might take a little bit time here and there, but uh yeah. Jorge Palanco, you are a New York Met. Um, oh, real quick, Andrew Nisner, I’ll do a video if that becomes official. Like, sounds like it will, but um, we’ll wait until that one becomes official. Love you.

Jorge Polanco is not going to play for the Seattle Mariners, because he plays for the New York Mets now. It’s a bummer of a loss, as he was really good for the majority of 2025. Good luck, buddy.

#mariners
#mlb
#seausrise
#sports
#recap
#baseball

Simply Seattle provides the best in Seattle Sports gear, and you can save 15 percent by using code MollyWhop15 at checkout. https://www.simplyseattle.com/