Over the last several years, as the Twins have assembled and developed their current young core at the Major League level, Jorge Polanco might not have been as recognizable of a name as Jose Berrios, Byron Buxton or Miguel Sano -- but the Twins' 26-year-old shortstop has made it impossible for the baseball world not to take notice of his breakout campaign.
The storyline coming into the season read that bounceback seasons from Buxton and Sano would be most critical to the club's success -- and to their credit, they've certainly provided that. But Polanco has taken baseball by surprise by not only emerging as the most productive member of that core, but also as one of the most valuable players in all of baseball.
"This is a very humbling experience as you keep playing," Polanco said. "That’s what you focus on at the beginning of the season. The more you play and things start coming your way, you start realizing some reality and it’s really humbling and special to know you can make it. And right now I’m making it to the All-Star Game."
His defense, once a point of weakness, has graded better across the board. His already strong plate discipline has continued to develop, and he's walking more and striking out less. He's hitting the ball harder than he has in his career and is also squaring the ball up more often. He has already tied his career-high in homers and is among the league's leaders in extra-base hits.
"It's just a good combination of traits, the types of traits that not very many hitters in the league have," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "Everybody has a strength in one form or another, but I think [Polanco] has several strengths, which they all show themselves almost every game at one point or another."
Five years after his debut, Polanco has finally blossomed into a young shortstop in his prime that owns the ninth-highest WAR, per FanGraphs, in the American League, and has garnered enough national recognition that he was voted the AL's starting shortstop in Tuesday's All-Star Game at Progressive Field, where he'll be joined by Berrios -- an All-Star for the second straight year -- and fellow first-timer Jake Odorizzi.
Berrios, who is quickly growing into the role of staff ace, said in the weeks leading up to the All-Star break that his selection last season motivated him throughout the year so that he could be less timid around the other stars of the game this time around. Odorizzi, meanwhile, finally earned his first All-Star selection at age 29 after working hard over the offseason to refine his mechanics and his slider and cutter.
Polanco will become the first Twins infielder to start the Midsummer Classic since since shortstop Roy Smalley in 1979.
"He's going to, in the next few years, stay an All-Star, because now, he's starting to understand a lot of stuff," said assistant hitting coach Rudy Hernandez. "The more he plays, the more he progresses, because he's one of those guys that really studies the game. He really studies the game a lot. It's those little things that make you a better player."
None of this is to say that this breakout has been entirely unexpected.
The bat control and plate discipline were always there, and that's part of why, when Baldelli first arrived in Minnesota and started writing out his lineups, Polanco and his consistently professional at-bats would usually be penciled in near the top. It's no coincidence that Polanco and Nelson Cruz have been the only two Twins regulars to have made all of their starts in the top third of the lineup.
But there's also something to be said for just learning from experience and getting more plate appearances under one's belt -- as has been the case in Max Kepler's breakout -- and Polanco has blossomed from not only seeing opposing pitchers more, his coaches say, but also by learning how to more intelligently prepare for what he'll see on the field -- and ultimately adjust when he's in the batter's box.
"Jorge is a really smart kid," hitting coach James Rowson said. "He understands the game, he works at his craft, and he learns from the things he's done in the past. I think what ends up happening with a year like this year, it's just a guy that's maturing, that understands this league, who's seen the pitchers, and now he's starting to take those lessons from the past and blossom from them."
Hernandez says that Polanco will now talk through his plan in the batting cage before games and more meticulously study how he's been pitched before. He singled out Polanco's understanding of the movement of various offerings and how to better lay off those pitches as a particular area of improvement, and they're see him better adjust between plate appearances to what a pitcher might have on any given day.
"I'm just focused on being more prepared for the games," Polanco said. "It's more mental. We're working on our hitting and our defense, too, but it's more to be mentally prepared to play the game."
It's no surprise, then, that Polanco has hit .247/.265/.395 with 17 strikeouts and two walks when seeing a pitcher the first time, while improving to .343/.395/.701 with nine strikeouts and six walks in his next plate appearance.
"He's able to make adjustments on what pitches are strikes, what pitches are balls, and things like that," Rowson said. "He's just starting to become a really professional hitter. A really advanced hitter for his age."
Considering all that, the Twins look to have gotten everything they could have hoped and more out of the five-year, $25.75 million extension with a pair of club options that Polanco signed last offseason to buy out the remainder of his arbitration years. It's hard to argue that he hasn't been worth every last penny.
When Polanco first appeared in a Twins uniform in 2014, he was just a 20-year-old kid called up straight from Class A Advanced Fort Myers. After showing solid progress in 2016 and hints of a breakout in '17, he was sidelined for 80 games, of what could have been a pivotal '18, with a suspension.
He didn't let that deter him in a productive return to the field at the end of last season, and his hard work has finally paid off.
"He believed that if his work continued to be the same way, that the results were going to show," Rowson said. "It was great that happened for him this year, because I think that's something that's great for him this year, but it's something that's going to be great for his career, learning that if he sticks with the process and he's doing the right thing, it's ultimately the right results that will continue to happen for him."