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Jorge Luis Pacheco Polanco (born July 5, 1993) is a Dominican professional baseball infielder for the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously played in MLB for the Minnesota Twins. Polanco made his MLB debut in 2014 and was an MLB All-Star in 2019.
Playing for the Elizabethton Twins in 2012, Polanco hit .318/.388/.514 with five home runs in 51 games. He played the 2013 season for the Cedar Rapids Kernels hitting .308/.362/.452 and five home runs in 115 games. He was named a mid-season All-Star. After the season, he played for the Leones del Escogido of the Dominican Professional Baseball League, where he would play the next three offseasons, as well. In November, he was added to the Twins 40-man roster.
Polanco started 2015 back in Double-A, now with the Chattanooga Lookouts. He was called up to the Twins, making his second career MLB start and committing his first MLB error on June 10, before returning to Chattanooga. He was named a Southern League All-Star with the Lookouts. On July 4, he was promoted to the Triple-A Rochester Red Wings. He again briefly returned to the Twins in late July, batting 2-for-7 with 1 RBI in three games, before finishing out the season in Triple-A. After the season, both MLB.com and Baseball America ranked Polanco near the bottom of their top 100 prospects lists.
In 2017, Polanco was the primary shortstop for the Twins, hitting .256 with 13 home runs, 74 RBIs, and a career high 13 stolen bases in 133 games. On August 29, he hit home runs as both a right-handed and left-handed batter in the same game. He made his postseason debut, batting 1-for-4 and scoring twice as the Twins lost to the New York Yankees in the Wild Card Game.
On March 18, 2018, Polanco was suspended for 80 games after testing positive for stanozolol, a performance-enhancing drug. He was also ineligible to play in the postseason. He was reinserted as the Twins shortstop upon his return from suspension. In 77 games, he hit .288 with 6 home runs and 42 RBIs.
Polanco was the American League starting shortstop in the All-Star Game, besting Gleyber Torres and Carlos Correa in fan voting. He was batting .321 on June 30, shortly after voting results were announced, but he cooled off, batting .267 the rest of the season. Polanco finished with a .295 batting average in 153 games. He hit 22 home runs, drove in 79 RBI, and scored 107 runs. In his return to the playoffs, he homered in Game 1 of the American League Division Series (ALDS) and hit .273 in three games as the Twins again lost to the Yankees. He has his first ankle surgery after the season.
In 2021, the Twins signed Andrelton Simmons to play shortstop, so Polanco became a second baseman. Polanco batted .269/.323/.503 and set career highs with 33 home runs and 98 RBIs. He began pulling the ball more and hitting more line drives and fly balls. He was named the Twins' MVP and most improved player for 2021.
In 2022, Polanco hit .235, the lowest average of his career thus far, but he offset his low average with 64 walks and 16 home runs in 104 games. He walked in 14.4 percent of plate appearances, sixth best among batters with at least 400 plate appearances. Manager Rocco Baldelli later said Polanco could barely walk or swing a bat in 2022.
Polanco hit his 100th career home run on April 28, 2023. He began 2023 still playing second base. After two trips to the injured list with hamstring injuries in May and June, Polanco moved over to Third baseman, displaced by rookie Edouard Julien at second base. On September 30, Baldelli named Polanco and Kyle Farmer the unofficial co-managers of the game, assisting him in exchanging lineup cards and making pitching substitutions.
Polanco hit .255/.335/.454 in 80 games in 2023, his fewest since his drug suspension in 2018. While the Twins won their first postseason series in 21 years, Polanco hit poorly, going 4-for-21 in the playoffs with a home run in Game 1 of the ALDS.
After the season, the Twins exercised their $10.5 million option on Polanco for the 2024 season.
On February 3, 2025, the Mariners re-signed Polanco to a one-year, $7 million contract. On April 28, Polanco was named the American League Player of the Week for the fifth week of the season after going 8-for-17 (.471) with four home runs, two doubles, two walks, eight RBI, and five runs scored in at-bats. Polanco won the honor a week after his teammate Dylan Moore earned the award for the Mariners. It's the first time since Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr. in 1998 that Seattle players have won the award in consecutive weeks. On July 6, Polanco recorded his 1,000 career hit in the first inning when he hit a single to center field against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Polanco signed with the Twins in 2009 at the home of his grandparents, Maximo Polanco and Melida Pegero, with both his mother's and father's family present. Maximo, who raised Jorge for many years and taught him how to swim, died in 2017.
Polanco grew up playing baseball with future Twins teammate Miguel Sanó. Their mothers worked together.
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