Seattle Mariners Veteran Making Comeback Player of Year Case
To this point, they have done more than just compete. They entered Wednesday with a 17-12 record, good enough for first in the American League West, and the third-best record in the American League overall.
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The success, in large part, has come thanks to a veteran infielder who has simply just existed for much of his career. Now in his 12th Major League campaign, Jorge Polanco entered 2025 with a career OPS+ of 109. So far this season, his second with the Mariners, that metric sits at 264.
Polanco, 31, is currently batting .389/.423/.819 with nine home runs and 25 RBI across 79 plate appearances in 21 games. The infielder has shown flashes of power before, hitting 33 home runs for the Minnesota Twins in 2021, but he has never hit long balls at this pace.
If you extrapolate Polanco's games played over a full season, he is currently on pace to play in only 117 games. That is not an outlandishly low total, as he played in only 118 last year, and has topped 118 only three other times in his career.
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The outlandish part comes from his current pace of home runs. Polanco, who has hit 30 or more home runs in a single season only once, and 20 or more home runs in a single season only twice, is currently on pace to mash 50 bombs this year across those 117 games.
This insane pace is thanks in large part to a recent power surge that has seen the infielder knock five home runs over his last seven games. Of those five, two alone came in Tuesday against the Los Angeles Angels.
It has been a strong start to the year at the plate for Polanco. While regression is certainly due sooner rather than later, if he can keep up even half of his current pace, he would be a serious contender for American League Comeback Player of the Year.
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