One Man’s Trash: Hip Hip Jorge?

Emerging from the shadows, the sunlight burned my retinas, forcing my Asian eyes to squint even smaller. After the discombobulation ended, my head was hurled back suddenly as if God moved the swing arm of a protractor. As I now gazed deep into the light blue California sky, I expected to see puffs of smoke and hear the toot of a horn because it sounded like I was on a train, but with intermittent gunfire. Still pointed towards the heavens, I was lurched forward slowly, then slower, then……

OOOOOHHHHHHHHH SHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIII……………………………………………

My stomach rose up into my chest. Or did my chest fall into my stomach? My face splattered. My hair was slicked back without the slick. I hurtled back towards Earth faster than the speed limit on the freeway. That is what the Jorge Polanco experience is going to be like. The one difference is that the ascent up has been much different. Some of the roller coasters now launch a coaster up the hill in effortless fashion. Polanco’s beginning to this season has been launched with NOS.

Polanco is going to cool off, but over 50% have rostered him over the last week in ESPN leagues, so I thought he’d be quite relevant.

The true rise of Polanco is evident in Grey’s daily recaps. Last Tuesday, Polanco was buried sixth from the bottom. One week later, he was 31st from the bottom. For those of you that need the book flipped upside down, that’s going from 46th to 26th.

Let’s get to the nitty gritty.

In 79 plate appearances, Polanco is slashing .389/.423/.819 with a 5.1% walk rate, 11.4% strikeout rate and .431 ISO. L. O. L. The BABIP is .345.

This is Polanco’s 12th season in MLB.

He’s never batted over .300 in any season that he received significant playing time. The BABIP has been over .300 four times.

The walk rate has been all over the place, from 6% to 14%. Polanco has never been a big strikeout guy, as it’s exceeded 20% three times, although those have come in the last three seasons. The 11.4% mark so far this season is a career-best by a significant margin.

The ISO has been over .200 once, and that was the magical season in 2021 when he hit 33 home runs, stole 11 bases, scored 97 runs, and drove in 98. There was only one other season that Polanco hit over 20 home runs (2019 with 22).

Polanco has been getting lucky and doing outlier things. He’s going to regress, but the question is, how much? Are there fundamental changes that require us to look at Polanco in a different light?

Well, the average exit velocity is 92.6 mph. He was in the 88 mph range over the last two seasons and has never been above 90 mph before. The launch angle of 12.9 degrees is actually a career-low. He was at 17.9 degrees last season and in the 21 degree range the prior two seasons. The barrel rate is 20%! That places him 10th in MLB! He’s been in the double digits three other times. Not surprisingly, the hard hit rate is 56.9%, and also a career high by a wide margin. It’s been over 40% just one other time.

The batted ball profile looks similar for the most part. The one significant change is the pull rate. It’s now at 55.4%. It was 48.6% last season and has been over 50% one other time. Wanna guess when that was? Yup, the magical 2021 season.

In terms of plate discipline, Polanco is chasing more, but it’s still under 30%. He’s swinging more, especially in the strike zone. The Z-Swing% is a whopping 71.8%. That number was 63.4% and 65.6% the prior two seasons. The contact rates have also increased. Outside the strike zone, he’s at 65.9%. That number was in the low-to-mid 50% range in the prior three seasons.

The Statcast bat speed data show that he’s swinging the bat around 1 mph faster from both sides of the plate.

Finally, Davy Andrews at Fangraphs wrote an excellent article about Polanco’s recent heater. I wanted to zoom in on the changed hitting mechanics that Andrews focused on. TLDR, the mechanics have become much more simple with decreases in leg kick and hand load.

Polanco is not going to continue having an ISO over .400. For shits and giggles, I looked up how many times a player has ended with an ISO over .400 in a season. It’s happened 12 times in MLB history. Barry Bonds did it back in 2001 with a .536 mark!!! LLLLLLLLLLLLLLL. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.

Babe Ruth did it three times. Bonds did it a total of four times. Mark McGwire did it four times. Sammy Sosa did it once.

Do I think Polanco can replicate the magical 2021 season? Niet, especially since he plays in a ball park that suppresses home runs, and Polanco will fall far shy of the 644 plate appearances he accrued that season.

That said, I think Polanco will still have utility, especially since he could be among the league leaders for home runs at second base. The tricky thing will be interpreting and managing the upcoming cold streak.