Mets Continue Their Overhaul by Adding Jorge Polanco

The remaking of the Mets continues apace. After losing fan favorites Edwin Díaz and Pete Alonso to other teams in free agency last week, the Mets took a step towards replacing the latter by signing switch-hitting infielder Jorge Polanco to a two-year, $40 million deal on Saturday. Though he has almost no experience at first base, the Mets believe he can learn the position well enough for it to be his primary position.

The 32-year-old Polanco probably isn’t the first player anyone thought of as an Alonso replacement, particularly given the bigger-ticket free agents out there and the Mets’ spending power, but he’s coming off a strong season at the plate (.265/.326/.495/, 132 wRC+ with 26 homers) for the Mariners as well as a memorable October. Though he hit just .208/.269/.417 (95 wRC+) in 52 plate appearances during the postseason, his two homers off the Tigers’ Tarik Skubal powered Seattle to a 3-2 win in Game 2 of the Division Series, and his bases-loaded single off Tommy Kahnle in the 15th inning of Game 5 gave the team its first postseason series victory in 24 years. In the ALCS opener against the Blue Jays, he drove in the Mariners’ last two runs with RBI singles in their 3-1 win, then hit a three-run homer off Louis Varland that gave Seattle the lead for good in Game 2. Alas, he went just 2-for-17 the rest of the way as the Mariners fell to the Blue Jays in seven games.

Polanco, who spent the past two seasons with the Mariners and before that parts of 10 seasons with the Twins, has played mainly second base and shortstop during his major league career, though he hasn’t played the latter position since 2022, and the defensive metrics attest that it’s not a good idea anymore. Even at second base, his metrics have descended into the red, to the point that he was primarily a designated hitter last season following an October 2024 surgery to repair his left patellar tendon. He accumulated -2 DRS and -3 FRV in just 287.1 innings at second in 2024, and -1 DRS and -8 FRV in 925.1 innings there the year before.

With Francisco Lindor and recent trade acquisition Marcus Semien, the Mets have the middle infield covered anyway, so president of baseball operations David Stearns has indicated he instead envisions Polanco as a first baseman who can also DH and provide insurance at the other infield positions. He has exactly one pitch of professional experience at first, from an April 6 game against the Giants in San Francisco. He entered a tie game in the bottom of the ninth as part of a lineup shuffle after Victor Robles fractured the humeral head of his left shoulder while making a spectacular catch. With Miles Mastrobuoni moving from third base to right field and Dylan Moore from first to third, Polanco entered the game at first base. On the next pitch from Gregory Santos, Wilmer Flores ripped a groundball to the left of second baseman Ryan Bliss, bringing home Luis Matos with the winning run.

The Mets are banking that Polanco’s athleticism and willingness to learn the new position will be enough. If that idea seems risky (tell ’em, Wash), at least the bar to replace him on that side of the ball couldn’t be any lower. Alonso ranked last in both DRS (-9) and FRV (-8) in 2025 and made numerous throws that imperiled pitchers. One of those bad tosses, to Kodai Senga on June 12, marked the turning point of the Mets’ season, as the pitcher strained his right hamstring reaching for the ball; Senga missed a month and pitched poorly thereafter, while the Mets, 45-24 at the time, went 38-55 the rest of the way and missed the playoffs.

Replacing Alonso’s bat is a much taller task. Polanco’s 132 wRC+ represented a career high; it matches Alonso’s career mark and is only nine points short of what the departed first baseman put up last year, but it was also the first time Polonco had posted a mark of 120 or better since 2021. He battled leg injuries in 2022, ’23, and ’24, with multiple bouts of left knee inflammation and strains of both hamstrings sending him to the injured list, and as noted, he underwent surgery after the 2024 season. Though he was ready to go at the start of 2025, a minor oblique strain in late March prevented him from hitting right-handed for a five-week span, from April 1 through May 5. Check out the early-season imbalance in plate appearances versus pitchers of each handedness:

For his career, Polanco owns a 116 wRC+ against righties, compared to 100 against lefties. Largely shielded from the latter through the first two months of 2025, he was red-hot in April, even tying for fourth in the majors in homers. He then went ice cold in May and June before heating up again; from July 1 onward, he was the Mariners’ most productive hitter, posting a 153 wRC+, ahead of Julio Rodríguez (147), Dominic Canzone (141), Cal Raleigh and deadline acquisition Josh Naylor (both 137). He finished with a career-best 150 wRC+ (.305/.345/.543 in 114 PA) against lefties and a 127 wRC+ (.254/.321/.481 in 410 PA) against righties.

Polanco owes his big season to an overhaul of his offensive game. In his mid-20s with the Twins, he’d demonstrated the ability to hit for power without sacrificing contact, batting .295/.356/.485 (120 wRC+) with 22 homers and a 16.5% strikeout rate in 2019 and .269/.323/.503 (124 wRC+) with 33 homers and an 18.3% strikeout rate in ’21. To that point, his strikeout rates had always remained below 20%, but he was above 21% annually from 2022-24, with a high of 29.2% in the last of those years, the worst full-season performance of his career (.213/.296/.355, 93 wRC+). He cut that almost in half in 2025, to 15.6%, and improved his in-zone contact rate from 82.1% to 88.1%, with simplified mechanics. As Andrea Arcadipane detailed at The Athletic in May while focusing on his left-handed swing, he positioned his hands higher than in 2024, and went from a dramatic leg lift to a more subtle one, allowing him to transfer his weight more effectively. His final Statcast bat-tracking numbers illustrate how dramatically he closed both of his stances, and how his average bat speed improved, with his squared-up and blast rates both improving substantially while batting left-handed:

With those revamped mechanics, Polanco’s average exit velocity improved from 88.3 mph in 2024 to a career-high 90.8 mph in ’25, with his barrel rate rising from 8.9% to 10.3% and his hard-hit rate from 37.2% to 45.8%; percentile-wise, those 2025 figures ranked from the 62nd to 66th percentiles. Here’s a look at the breakdown by handedness, along with his expected stats:

From the left side — the much larger sample — Polanco improved dramatically, with his actual numbers closely resembling his expected ones. From the right side, he hit the ball harder than in 2024, but not nearly as hard as from the left side, though he still managed to produce a slugging percentage well beyond his expected numbers. If there’s regression ahead, that’s where it’s most likely to happen.

Polanco isn’t the marquee free agent Mets fans were hoping for, and at $20 million a year, he isn’t exactly a bargain. Still, the ZiPS projection provided by Dan Szymborski isn’t out of line with the deal:

ZiPS suggests a $34 million contract for those two years, but if the changes Polanco made in 2025 can hold, he’s got a reasonable shot of being more valuable; even if he merely matches it, he’s not a long-term liability. His deal shouldn’t preclude the Mets’ pursuit of Kyle Tucker or Cody Bellinger, and the team still has a number of other players who could either be part of their infield or help them make an impact move via trade. Brett Baty, Ronny Mauricio, Luisangel Acuña, and Mark Vientos are all young and cost-controlled, and pending free agent Jeff McNeil is a trade candidate as well. Baty is penciled in as the primary third baseman after a breakout season, while Vientos could be ticketed for a backup first base/DH role after slipping from a 27-homer, 132-wRC+ 2024 performance to a 17-homer, 97-wRC+ showing in ’25. He hit .233/.289/.413 and was dreadful (-10 DRS, -6 FRV) in 556 innings at third base, and with just 112 major league innings at first base, the Mets apparently see him as too much of a risk to build into a starting role.

Filling Alonso’s shoes won’t be easy, but as this deal suggests, Polanco won’t be expected to do so alone. The good news is that it’s still December, the Mets have considerable flexibility with their roster — they can even add another first base/DH option to the mix if the opportunity presents itself — and the big pieces are still on the board. We’ll see where Stearns goes next in overhauling his squad.