{"id":88734,"date":"2024-11-01T21:03:20","date_gmt":"2024-11-02T01:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=88734"},"modified":"2024-11-01T21:03:20","modified_gmt":"2024-11-02T01:03:20","slug":"mariners-decline-jorge-polanco-option-free-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/11\/01\/mariners-decline-jorge-polanco-option-free-agent\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariners Decline Veteran Infielder&#8217;s Option for 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Seattle Mariners have declined second baseman Jorge Polanco&#8217;s $12 million option for next season, making him a free agent.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Jorge Polanco\u2019s $12 million club option for 2025 has been declined by the Mariners, the team just announced. He will receive a $750,000 buyout and becomes a free agent.<\/p>\n<p>Also, Luis Ur\u00edas cleared waivers and has elected free agency.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Daniel Kramer (@DKramer_) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DKramer_\/status\/1852419015291089010?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 1, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Mariners Decline Jorge Polanco&#8217;s Option, Making Him Free Agent<\/h2>\n<p>Polanco&#8217;s lone season in teal and green was a mixed bag. The Mariners <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/01\/29\/jorge-polanco-traded-mariners\/\" target=\"_self\">sent four players<\/a> to the Minnesota Twins to acquire him back in January. At times, he looked like the guy Seattle has been missing since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/canoro01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-01_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Robinson Cano<\/a>. Most of the time, however, he looked like every other player who has tried to replace Cano. In other words, not very good.<\/p>\n<p>In the six seasons since Cano&#8217;s departure, Seattle has had seven people try to fill in. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gordode01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-01_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dee Strange-Gordon<\/a>, who they brought in to play center field, found moderate success there. His slash line of .275\/.304\/.359, with three home runs and 34 RBI is the best in that period. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/toroab01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-01_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Abraham Toro<\/a>, acquired at the deadline from the division rival Houston Astros in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/graveke01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-01_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kendall Graveman<\/a> trade, has the next-best average of .252.<\/p>\n<p>Veterans and rookies alike have tried, and failed, to stop Seattle&#8217;s second base curse. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=mooredy01,moore-005dyl&amp;search=Dylan+Moore&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-01_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dylan Moore<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/l\/longsh01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-01_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shed Long Jr.<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/fraziad01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-01_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Adam Frazier<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wongko01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-01_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kolten Wong<\/a>, and now Jorge Polanco have all been chewed up and spit out.<\/p>\n<h3>Positives and Negatives<\/h3>\n<p>Polanco&#8217;s time in Seattle wasn&#8217;t a total failure, however. While the stats don&#8217;t look pretty, he played an alright second base with seven errors, his lowest total when playing more than 100 games. His .981 fielding percentage is the third-highest of his career. Polanco was a nice veteran presence to have in the lineup, and you never really were worried about second base when the ball was hit there.<\/p>\n<p>The offensive side of things was more bleak. His .213 average and OPS of .651 were by far his career lows. His 137 strikeouts were a career-high, also by far, and his hit total of 89 is his second lowest when playing more than 100 games. He still somehow managed to put up 1.4 WAR, but that&#8217;s his lowest since 2020.<\/p>\n<h3>Where to Go from Here?<\/h3>\n<p>It&#8217;s not really a surprise that Seattle declined Polanco&#8217;s option. He&#8217;s going into his age-32 season and is coming off patellar tendon surgery, which could deeply interrupt his offseason routine. He missed 50 games last year, including an IL stint due to a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/06\/24\/jorge-polano-returns-injured-list\/\" target=\"_self\">hamstring strain<\/a>, and has a serious injury track record. Polanco is a good hitter, but he is coming off the worst year of his career. He could still provide value to a lot of teams out there. His days as a starter for a playoff team, though, might be over. With an owner as stingy as John Stanton, it&#8217;s almost smart to save the extra $12 million. The real question is, who will the Mariners&#8217; second base curse claim next?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Erik Williams-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Seattle Mariners have declined second baseman Jorge Polanco&#8217;s $12 million option for next season, making him a free agent. Jorge Polanco\u2019s $12 million club option for 2025 has been declined by the Mariners, the team just announced. He will receive a $750,000 buyout and becomes a free agent. Also, Luis Ur\u00edas cleared waivers and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5357,"featured_media":88745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1071,35],"tags":[1103,4705,5049,513,1080,736,365,2332],"class_list":["post-88734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mariners","category-mlb","category-news","tag-adam-frazier","tag-dee-strange-gordon","tag-dylan-moore","tag-jorge-polanco","tag-kendall-graveman","tag-kolten-wong","tag-robinson-cano","tag-shed-long"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5357"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}