The Jorge Polanco Trade Has Strangely Become a Win-Win For Seattle and Minnesota

[Cody Schoenmann]

Image courtesy of Steven Bisig-Imagn Images

On Jan. 29, 2024, the Minnesota Twins traded fan-favorite infielder Jorge Polanco to the Seattle Mariners for starting pitcher Anthony DeSclafani, reliever Justin Topa, right-handed hitting prospect Gabriel Gonzalez, and right-handed pitching prospect Darren Bowen. Despite being undeserving of the "blockbuster" tag, the swap between Minnesota and Seattle served as both organization's most notable transactions two offseasons ago, with expectations of Polanco, DeSclafani, and Topa playing significant roles for their respective playoff-seeking clubs.

Unfortunately, the trade's desired results did not come to fruition. Polanco struggled at the plate and in the field for Seattle, evidenced by him generating a substandard 92 wRC+ over 469 plate appearances and a -10 Outs Above Average (OAA). After undergoing forearm flexor tendon surgery, DeSclafani didn't throw a single pitch for Minnesota. Topa also battled significant injuries, resulting in the expected mid-to-high-leverage reliever tossing only 2 ⅓ innings for the already eliminated-from-playoff-contention Twins in late September. Gonzalez and Bowen also struggled at High-A Cedar Rapids last season, looking like a shell of the prospects they were in Seattle's system a season prior. 

Topa, Gonzalez, and Bowen remained with Minnesota, hoping to rebound from their lackluster 2024 campaigns. DeSclafani eventually departed from the Twins, going unsigned last offseason before agreeing to a minor league contract with the New York Yankees earlier this month. Polanco also reached free agency last offseason after the Mariners declined his $12 million team option. However, the veteran infielder somewhat surprisingly re-signed with Seattle in early February, agreeing to a one-year, $7 million deal with a vesting option for 2026. 

A once-exciting trade between Seattle and Minnesota quickly became a sunk-cost circumstance, with both organizations attempting to squeeze whatever minimal value remained from the players. Much to the surprise of both organizations, however, the petals of the once-detested deal have come to bloom a season later than expected. Polanco has evolved into one of baseball's best hitters this season, generating a 183 wRC+ over 126 plate appearances. Seattle has also mitigated his defensive shortcomings, starting the 31-year-old almost exclusively at designated hitter. 

Alongside star position players Cal Raleigh, Julio Rodriguez, and Randy Arozarena, Polanco's superb swing has guided Seattle to a one-and-a-half-game lead over the Texas Rangers in the AL West. Simultaneously, Topa has been a steady force in Minnesota's bullpen, generating 1.84 ERA and 2.90 FIP over 14 ⅔ innings pitched. The 34-year-old right-handed pitcher has grown into the mid-to-high leverage reliever the Twins hoped he would last season, resulting in the club finally generating value from the deal at the major league level. 

Gonzalez and Bowen are also finding their fitting at their respective minor league levels. Over 152 plate appearances at High-A, Gonzalez is hitting .319/.375/.526 with 43 hits, 12 walks, and a 145 wRC+. Last season's power outage also appears to be resolved for the 21-year-old, evidenced by him hitting five home runs (the same amount he hit at High-A last season) over 163 fewer plate appearances. Still sporting a plus eye at the plate, evidenced by his 13.8% strikeout rate, the former Top 100 prospect could quickly find himself climbing back up Twins' top prospect rankings list after undergoing a significant tumble last season.

Bowen is thriving this season, too, manufacturing a 2.89 ERA over 28 innings pitched at Double-A. The 24-year-old's peripherals (6.03 FIP, 97.5% left on base rate, and an underwhelming 19.5% strikeout rate) suggest he is beneficiary of luck falling on his side early this season. However, considering his early season success and impressive fastball-slider combination, Bowen could eventually contribute to the parent club, even if it occurs as a reliever.

Nevertheless, after initially looking like a defective deal, Seattle and Minnesota are finally benefitting from their late January 2024 swap, even though it's occurring a season later than expected.

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[Brandon]

A couple of notes.  1.  You failed to mention the Twins saved 5.625 million in that trade and immediately signed Santana for that amount to play 1B last season.  While not in the trade, we clearly had that signing prenegotiated subject to this trade occurring.  So you can kinda count Santana’s contributions too.  (That is a grey area)..  2.  Once Polanco became a free agent the trade link is broken.  He is now a free agent signing.  The value from Polanco is from Free Agency.  Counting his contributions from this year is (also a grey area) because you could say that Seattle only signed him because they knew him from last year being on the team.  
 

Based on these factors, the Twins won the trade hands down.  But yes both teams are getting good value from the players in the trade this season.  Gonzales could be our future LF, 1B, or DH.  And we have another season of Topa after this one too.  

 

[DJL44]

What Polanco does in 2025 is completely unrelated to the trade. The Mariners declined the club option and Polanco became a free agent. That ended their side of the ledger after the 2024 season.

[bean5302]

45 minutes ago, Brandon said:

...1.  You failed to mention the Twins saved 5.625 million in that trade and immediately signed Santana for that amount to play 1B last season.  While not in the trade, we clearly had that signing prenegotiated subject to this trade occurring.  So you can kinda count Santana’s contributions too.  (That is a grey area)...

 

Using this kind of logic, any free agent any team signs could be attributable to their last trade. Santana was clearly a valuable signing for Minnesota, but if the Mariners had offered the Twins Ty France as part of the package, would they still have signed Santana?

[bean5302]

People are awfully excited about Gabriel Gonzalez. I really like what he's doing in A+ ball right now, but it's in A+, and his 3rd season in A+ ball. Gonzalez was all but written off coming into this year after back to back unimpressive seasons in Cedar Rapids. Seattle had been pretty aggressive with his promotions so Gonzalez isn't old for a good prospect at A+, but he's not really young, either.

Gonzalez needs to move to AA sooner than later so his skills can be tested to see if he's improved.

[Major League Ready]

19 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

People are awfully excited about Gabriel Gonzalez. I really like what he's doing in A+ ball right now, but it's in A+, and his 3rd season in A+ ball. Gonzalez was all but written off coming into this year after back to back unimpressive seasons in Cedar Rapids. Seattle had been pretty aggressive with his promotions so Gonzalez isn't old for a good prospect at A+, but he's not really young, either.

Gonzalez needs to move to AA sooner than later so his skills can be tested to see if he's improved.

You could say the same for Jose Salas.  What's up with him all the sudden?  It would be a very pleasant surprise if these two guys were promoted to AA by mid-season and were equally as productive at AA.  

[LambchoP]

I think Gonzalez needs the call up to AA. If he can continue producing there, I'll get excited. It has been nice getting great innings from Topa. With Alcala being a mess this year and now with Coloumbe on the IL, our pen is going to be stretched a bit. I think we're going to need another arm out there, maybe try Morris or Adams in relief?

[jmlease1]

1 hour ago, bean5302 said:

People are awfully excited about Gabriel Gonzalez. I really like what he's doing in A+ ball right now, but it's in A+, and his 3rd season in A+ ball. Gonzalez was all but written off coming into this year after back to back unimpressive seasons in Cedar Rapids. Seattle had been pretty aggressive with his promotions so Gonzalez isn't old for a good prospect at A+, but he's not really young, either.

Gonzalez needs to move to AA sooner than later so his skills can be tested to see if he's improved.

He just turned 21 this year and is 1.3 years younger than the average for his league. Just because he's a bit more experienced in professional baseball doesn't mean he's not still young. Seattle was aggressive with him in his promotions; unclear if that helped his development. I strongly suspect the reason he's back in High A this season was because he missed quite a lot of time with injury last season...which almost certainly was part of why his power production was down.

He's doing a nice job this year and looks like a real hitter. I think it's a good sign that he's had pretty neutral splits so far this season too, though the samples are small. Absent a sudden slump or injury, I would expect to see him in AA in June. (where he'll be about 3 years younger than the competition)

The disappointing part about the trade was how little Topa was able to contribute last season, when we certainly could have used him. Always felt like DeScalfani was more of the throw-in to get the salaries close enough for Seattle; I never expected a lot, but it was disappointing to get nothing. But Topa has been good this year so far and looks like a useful middle to late inning bullpen piece. Unfortunately, as much as I loved the guy, Polanco's value to the rest of the league had really dipped as the injuries piled up. Happy for him that he's been healthy this season, even if it seems that his days in the field are going to be more limited from now on.

[twinstalker]

Bowen has done nothing.  You mention it yourself...a 6+ FIP is actually unplayable.  If you were to predict the amount of runs he gives up in his next start (extrapolated to 9 innings), it would be over 6, not under 3.

Gonzalez, whom I liked in the deal, had a tough year.  Repeating the year and doing well is not success.  He will need to crush AA upon promotion this year to get back his prospect status.  Though I will say I wasn't quick to take it away from him, as I've still kept him in my top 15 after ranking him 9-ish last year.

Topa is still TBD and doesn't make up for the Twins 2B issues.

The SP we received was injured with a prognosis of very probably not helping the Twins.  The shame of it was the Twins never saying that and never adding depth along with him.

So what we have is Polanco crushing for a reliever doing okay in low leverage situations.  I mean, if we want to get technical about it.

[bean5302]

51 minutes ago, twinstalker said:

...So what we have is Polanco crushing for a reliever doing okay in low leverage situations.  I mean, if we want to get technical about it.

While I share your skepticism about the value of what the Twins have gotten back, 2024 was the end of the road for Polanco. He was a free agent this past year, and no team was going to exercise the option after how he played last year.

The trade was a lose-lose as far as I'm concerned. The Twins got nothing in the year they really needed it, and the Mariners got nothing, either.

[DJL44]

1 minute ago, bean5302 said:

The trade was a lose-lose as far as I'm concerned. The Twins got nothing in the year they really needed it, and the Mariners got nothing, either.

The Twins are likely to get 2 years of Topa and $5M in salary relief for Polanco, who was nearly unplayable in 2024. That's mostly nothing for nothing.

[bean5302]

Just now, DJL44 said:

The Twins are likely to get 2 years of Topa and $5M in salary relief for Polanco, who was nearly unplayable in 2024. That's mostly nothing for nothing.

...and the Twins ate $5MM for Anthony DeScalafani instead of being able to sign a different free agent rotation arm while the pitching staff was tossing a guy into the rotation who started the year in High-A as a non-prospect. Topa is an always hurt middle reliever at market value.

[jorgenswest]

For 2024 the trade seems like a loss for the Twins. If the dollars argument is relevant, Polanco’s salary was used to fill three holes (SP, RP, 1B).

While Santana was helpful at 1B, they did not look elsewhere to fill the number 4 starter spot. Varland was terrible in the rotation to start the year. Festa was OK. Matthews was bad. Those three combined for 30 starts that didn’t go to DeSclafani. I suppose they could have turned to Varland when Paddack went down and then SWR if Varland matched his 4 bad start from the start of the season, but it is still a bunch of ineffective starts as a result of trading for a pitcher with a huge injury risk to fill that hole. A similar argument can be made for Topa who had one healthy outlier season. They didn’t look elsewhere for that #4 spot in the bullpen.

I would argue this trade was a loss in 2024. Hopefully it will be a net plus after a few years.

[Brandon]

5 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Using this kind of logic, any free agent any team signs could be attributable to their last trade. Santana was clearly a valuable signing for Minnesota, but if the Mariners had offered the Twins Ty France as part of the package, would they still have signed Santana?

I would only say the Twins saved 5.625 million in the trade.  I include the Santana signing because it happened literally the next day for the exact amount we saved in the deal.  It’s a grey area so you can just say the Twins saved 5.625 million in the deal and that’s fine because the Twins required less value for a good return because they now had less cash outlay.  Around 40% less then what Polanco was paid.

[Brandon]

2 hours ago, bean5302 said:

...and the Twins ate $5MM for Anthony DeScalafani instead of being able to sign a different free agent rotation arm while the pitching staff was tossing a guy into the rotation who started the year in High-A as a non-prospect. Topa is an always hurt middle reliever at market value.

They had to eat that salary to make the trade hence Gonzalez was included.  I really liked the creativity of the trade. I doubt anyone was expecting Topa and DeSclafani to be hurt the full year.  I was thinking we would get around 20 starts give or take from Desclafini and most if not the whole year of health from Topa.

[Jocko87]

Much to the surprise of both organizations, however, the petals of the once-detested deal have come to bloom a season later than expected.

 

Why would you be so confident to speak for these organizations? You don't know this and it's obviously a narrative setting wish fulfillment to say this.

Both teams knew exactly what they were getting.

Both teams would likely do the deal again.  We don't need to pretend we know inner thoughts.

[bean5302]

1 hour ago, Brandon said:

They had to eat that salary to make the trade hence Gonzalez was included.  I really liked the creativity of the trade. I doubt anyone was expecting Topa and DeSclafani to be hurt the full year.  I was thinking we would get around 20 starts give or take from Desclafini and most if not the whole year of health from Topa.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here? That Gonzalez wouldn't have been traded for Polanco unless the Twins ate part of DeSclafani's contract?

My point is the Twins took back a player they didn't want because Falvey overplayed his hand yet again and got backed into a corner. Seattle happily got rid of DeSclafani, but nobody really benefited from the trade at all because everybody sucked.

The trade was a loss for the Twins because they would have been much better off declining the option on Polanco in the first place. There's potentially a saving grace in that Gonzalez could eventually become something.

The trade was a loss for the Mariners because Polanco was terrible, but their saving grace is at least they unloaded a portion of DeSclafani's contract which seemed impossible at the time.

[TheLeviathan]

2024: Lose-lose

2025: Twins win.  The Seattle side of the ledger doesn't include Polanco because they declined the option and signed him as a FA.

But it's a mild win with potential for bigger gains if the kid in A ball progresses and keeps hitting.

[glunn]

I liked the article and believe that both teams have "won".

[Doctor Gast]

The Twins clearly lost on Polanco. 1st, they broke the potential MVP by keep playing him at SS when he didn't have the ankles to play there. He kept having surgery on them after every season he played there. Although he often got hurt in his long career, he didn't land on the IL until '22 when he hurt his back & quickly bounced back. Later that year, he injured his knee; they kept playing him for weeks until he could no longer take the field. This mismanagement has plagued Polanco until now. Just to get a glimpse of what we lost out on, let us look at '19. He became an All-Star & was the favorite for the MVP in the 1st half. 2nd half, he battled with sore ankles but still ended with 4.6 bWAR & MVP votes. In '21, he had 5 bWAR. Although playing hurt, that hurt his defensive stats, but when he played w/o hurting, he'd make the MLB highlights & fill his seasonal highlights with defensive plays. He was often referred to as the heart & soul of the team & Mr Clutch, which indicates the intangibles he brought to the team. 

2nd- TOR shortly after they obtained Berrios, they extended him, meaning they tore up the old contract & he signed a new one. Just because SEA tore up Polanco's contract & re-signed him through FA, doesn't change anything. They wanted him back (Twins didn't try to resign DeSclavani). '24 Polanco was hurt & was a big disappointment, but he still managed 1.4 WAR. How much WAR did we get back from the players we received combined? ZERO. Polanco has practically carried the SEA team offensively while playing hurt this season. Plus, all the intangibles he brings to the table. Topa is a middle RP, Gonzalez is a liability at defense, a free swinger bat that will never profile at any position. He'll never deserve the right to make the MLB with the Twins (unless they are bound & determined to justify that trade) or IMO anywhere else. So, who would I prefer? No question, POLANCO!

[Peter Gravett]

20 hours ago, LambchoP said:

I think Gonzalez needs the call up to AA. If he can continue producing there, I'll get excited. It has been nice getting great innings from Topa. With Alcala being a mess this year and now with Coloumbe on the IL, our pen is going to be stretched a bit. I think we're going to need another arm out there, maybe try Morris or Adams in relief?

Agreed. Thinking Adams preferably given long-relief is likely Adam's future. 

[Major League Ready]

We just are not going to know if this was a good trade for a couple years.   Gonzalez has a chance but he needs to produce for more than 6 weeks before we get too excited.  Topa could provide a decent amount of contribution over the next two years but RPs are the most unpredictable players in MLB.  

What we gave up was a replacement level performance.  Not a replacement level player but a replacement level performance.  We would not have exercised his option and neither would any other team.  Therefore, we gave up virtually nothing.  One could argue they should have signed him back when Seattle declined his option but that's a different argument.

It was not a win for Seattle and it has yet to become a win for the Twins.  Now, resigning Polanco for $7M was a win for Seattle.

[Riverbrian]

I'm going to repeat what I thought back at the time of the trade. 

At the time of the trade... I questioned if the Twins were better off with one big player (Polonco) or 3 maybe 4 smaller pieces (The players we spent the Polanco money on)... especially coming off a decent year in the playoffs. I didn't declare... I questioned it at the time. 

Despite the terrible year that Polanco had and the decent year that Santana had... I'm ready to declare that I think we would have been better off with the one big player. I'm not inclined to argue player for player... Santana worked out, Disco and Margot did not. I'm more inclined to argue concept and in the end... it was one positive in Santana and three negatives with dollar figures attached to them in Disco, Margot and Farmer. Yes I'm including Margot since he ate up some of the savings that Polanco provided and I'm including Farmer because he was chosen to stay at significant money when they could have kept Polanco instead.   

At the time of the trade... despite the loss of Polanco which I thought would be a blow. I still thought it was possible that the Twins won the trade. IF and only if Gonzalez develops into something in the future. It's going to be up the to the Twins development staff to win this trade. 

Trades are tough... gonna win some and lose some. Developing G.G. is how you win trades.   

[Brandon]

17 hours ago, bean5302 said:

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here? That Gonzalez wouldn't have been traded for Polanco unless the Twins ate part of DeSclafani's contract?

My point is the Twins took back a player they didn't want because Falvey overplayed his hand yet again and got backed into a corner. Seattle happily got rid of DeSclafani, but nobody really benefited from the trade at all because everybody sucked.

The trade was a loss for the Twins because they would have been much better off declining the option on Polanco in the first place. There's potentially a saving grace in that Gonzalez could eventually become something.

The trade was a loss for the Mariners because Polanco was terrible, but their saving grace is at least they unloaded a portion of DeSclafani's contract which seemed impossible at the time.

My point was that Polanco had a 13 million contract or so and to make the deal work for Seattle Minnesota had to take some cash back in the deal and that’s fine cash back in the deal was DeSclafini.  I imagine the Twins probably Tried to get away with only taking 3 million of his salary so they would have more to offer Santana but didn’t get it.