You never want to take anything for granted when it comes to the Seattle Mariners and the MLB offseason, but Jorge Polanco coming back feels like the kind of thing that just has to happen. The fit is too good, and the financial implications are not exactly a boogeyman for the Mariners.<\/p>\n
Yet even though it was originally teased as the most likely reunion<\/a> the Mariners were going to get this winter, Polanco returning to Seattle still hasn’t happened. And unlike Josh Naylor, more recent buzz on the 32-year-old’s intentions indicated that he’d rather play out the market<\/a> after spending the 2024 and 2025 seasons in the Pacific Northwest.<\/p>\n A big-market team may be poised to spoil the Mariners’ dreams of a Jorge Polanco reunion<\/p>\n It’s scary enough that Polanco wants to keep his options open, precisely because he should have plenty of them. A lot of lineups could use a hitter who had a 134 OPS+, 26 home runs and 30 doubles this year, and Polanco is extra appealing for two other reasons: he conceivably fits at as many as four positions, and he should only be in the market for a relatively short, relatively affordable deal.<\/p>\n And now we know of one heavy hitter that could enter the chat for Polanco: the Boston Red Sox.<\/p>\n His name came up in a Saturday report on the Red Sox’s intentions from Alex Speier of The Boston Globe<\/a>. He writes that Boston wants to add a top position player such as Alex Bregman or Pete Alonso, and that the team is also open to adding an “additional complementary position player” such as Polanco.<\/p>\n It’s not quite a report that the Red Sox have Polanco on their radar, or even that they’re “interested” in him. Yet this not the first instance of there being Polanco-related smoke in Boston, as Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon<\/a> of The Athletic had also pondered him as an ideal fit for the Red Sox.<\/p>\n And to be clear, he is. Polanco is simultaneously position-less and versatile, as he could work as a second baseman, a designated hitter, a third baseman, a first baseman or some combination of all of the above. Boston has needs at each of those spots, and the fact that Polanco is a switch-hitter with power is icing on the proverbial cake.<\/p>\n Because Washington doesn’t have income taxes and Massachusetts very much does<\/a>, the Mariners will have one advantage if they find themselves in a bidding war with the Red Sox. Yet Boston ultimately has more capital to throw around, as they pulled in close to $200 million more in revenue<\/a> than the Mariners did in 2024.<\/p>\n It does bear noting that the Mariners reaffirmed their desire to have Polanco back<\/a> even after they committed $92.5 million to Naylor. Yet even then, Jerry Dipoto didn’t expect Polanco’s market to move quickly. And unlike last winter<\/a>, it won’t necessarily work to Seattle’s advantage if he does linger in free agency for a while.<\/p>\n