The New York Mets rebuilt their roster for this season after collapsing and missing the playoffs last season.
As part of that rebuild, the organization walked away from stars such as Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz. The man brought in to replace Alonso at first base, Jorge Polanco, has some question marks around him already. Most notably, he’s never recorded a full major league inning at the position he expects to play.
Polanco was recently labeled a potential bust candidate by Tim Kelly of Bleacher Report, and the team has yet to even play a preseason game.
“There’s no doubt that Jorge Polanco was excellent for the Seattle Mariners last season, homering 26 times and posting an .821 OPS for a club that finished within a win of the World Series,” Kelly wrote. “The biggest problem, though, with the Mets giving him a two-year, $40 million deal this offseason is that he played in just 302 of a possible 486 games between 2021 and 2023. He’s a major risk from a health sense. Additionally, the Mets are asking him to slide over to first base, a position he’s played only once in his MLB career. So if Polanco struggles at first base, the Mets will either have to stick it out there or have him get the overwhelming majority of his at-bats at DH.”
Polanco is a big question mark this year, and manager Carlos Mendoza is going to have a lot of work to do in order to get him acclimated to the position. It’s also possible that Polanco regresses at the plate offensively after a strong season in Seattle.
The Mets made some good moves this offseason, but signing Polanco is one of the biggest question marks of the winter. Polanco will have to prove a lot of doubters wrong this season.
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