Jorge Polanco is on a TEAR | MLB Central

Mark DeRosa breaks down Jorge Polanco’s hot streak at the plate this season.

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Look at Polanco’s numbers 11 years de in the big leagues. And he says this is the best I’ve felt and I’m so curious how a player after 11 years looks different and I read about it a , a redefined approach and a new batting stance. What stands out to you all those things, Lauren? I also want to give love to Edgar Martinez. New, yeah, hitting instructor. Hall of fame, hitting instructor when that guy walks in the door and he’s down in the cage and he makes an adjustment or says to make an adjustment, you have to at least entertain that one of the best hitters of all time. I’m gonna read you a quote right here. He said about he goes, I I changed my stance because of my knee. He was trying to cover some things up from an injury. When Edgar got here, he just preached this approach. Everybody knew who Edgar was. So we just listened to him. OK, that’s number 11 thing I wanted to say about Jorge Polanco. I think he kind of gets lost in the shuffle out in Seattle. This is guy that hit 33 bombs back in 2021 in Minnesota. He received MV P votes in 2019, 2019 and he’s been nicked up. So he was hurt and had a terrible 2024 but he signed a one year $7.75 million deal. Pretty kind of quick with the Mariners. And I was sitting there going, wow. They watched him at his worst struggle deal with injury and they still, we’re quick to bring him back. So obviously, there’s a lot to love about this guy and they thought he could rekindle some glory and that’s exactly what he’s done. He has been on fire. The numbers are disgusting. He’s got better numbers right now than aaron Judge in the early part of the season. He’s got tanks for days. He had a Multihomer game. I’m gonna take you through those A BS, but we’re gonna bring up the first board. The weighted runs created plus leaders board. Pause this ops plus leaders this season, minimum 75 plate appearances. Jorge Polanco’s got Aaron Judge Pete Alonso, our boy Poin Smith Langford and the big sleeve Trent Grisham. So he’s on top of it. Has he made any adjustments? Yes, he has. We talked about it. What has he done differently? So pause this 2024. Nay, I, I wanna say the dates are, are, are skewed on this. If I if, if I’m not wrong, he was wide open in 2024. Right. Yes. All right. Don’t look at this bug 2025 and 2024. He was wide open in 2024. And edgar Martinez talked about and kevin Seitzer, the hitting coach talked about when you start wide open. If you’re bringing it back, sometimes you’re bringing it back in different places. Right. You’re not landing this foot in the same spot every time. So, what they wanted to do was kind of clean it up. So he has gone more to the traditional stance and cleaned it up where this front foot is more parallel to his back foot and he’s landing in the same spot and he’s consistent with his move towards the plate. Something that’s interesting to me because he was standing open and maybe turning and closing himself off a tick late to the fastball, not the case, bring up the side by side, side angle, keep this running pause. I mean, he’s made a massive overhaul. You see 24 here, he’s wide open. He’s closed it up in 2025. I love the ST the, the metrics. I’m where they’re standing in the box. Bring up that board. Devin, that’s where you can really tell where he stand in depth in the box way deeper in 2024. He’s moved up a smidge stance between his feet. He’s gotten wider this year, 37 degrees, open stance angle. Now he’s closed it up to four degrees and he’s catching the ball a little bit further out front, which should suggest he’s hammering the heater. Now, take a look, this is an overhead view looking down at the batting circle right here, back foot in 2024 he’s still standing on the back line. He’s adjusted his back toe pigeon his back foot a little bit, but he has closed himself up immensely and it’s led to huge homers in the early part, especially against the fastball. He also hammers the off speed. But in this small sample size, you get off to such a hot start your Hammer and everything. When we dive into the metrics, let’s quick rip and Then come out and look at his two A Bs last night where you had a multihomer game dead center, throw one in the bay for me. I mean, he’s getting out and around anything on the outer half and pulling it for power. Keep it running. Jacob deGrom Heater in doesn’t execute quick ###### down the left field line bayo change up, put it in the bullpen. I was watching that game first inning first at bat 12 changeup. And he’s on that when Bellos throwing 97 mile an hour bowling ball sinkers quatro at home, toughest yard to hit in. Still finding a way to go deep. Gillespie tried to go to that cutter in a 10 count and gets absolutely taken to the street pause this bring up the metrics boards on his swing hard hit rate through the roof up 2020 points. First difference. Sweet spot he’s up 13.3. His bat speeds increased. His strikeout percentage is down doing everything right. All right. Get back into the tape. I just wanna go through his, his , his A BS from last night. Ok. He gets to 32. He starts his 02 and he finds a way to work it back. That’s 95 sinker right there from Kohan Ait and he battles right here. Spits on 112 now. High heater, 22. I’m back in the count and I’m battling great take and he goes to the well one too many times. You got to think he’s gonna throw him a wrinkle at some point and he stays with that 95 sinker and Jorge goes deep later in the game 97 96 2 heaters, middle, middle and he just roasts them to dead center. Bring up the heater board for me and we’ll get out slugging percentage leaders versus fastball aaron Judge at 957. Polanco Pavin Smith showing up. How about Trent Grisham Polanco? It’s impressive what he had to deal with injury wise. And another thing not hitting from the right side, little oblique injury, it’s forced him to take all his A BS from the left side. Uh The Mariners have the have have scored the 3rd, 3rd most runs in the American League as we begin play on this Wednesday. The teams in front of them, teams are talking about when we come back.