Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Seattle Mariners. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb. A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here. All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.
Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.
Rookie-Level Names to Know
- Adrian Quintana, RHP
- Dylan Wilson, RHP
- Walter Ford, RHP
- Eduardo Ponce, C
- Juan Cazarez, RHP
- Danery Meyer, RHP
Quintana is a well-built 21-year-old righty who is sitting 90-92 with a plus curveball. He was promoted back to Modesto a few days before list publication. A 6-foot 18-year-old righty from Curaçao, Wilson is sitting 88-90 with two decent breaking balls (a low-80s lateral slider and a slower, vertical curveball). He’s an above-average athlete with below-average physical projection. Ford, who’s still just 19, signed for $1.2 million as the 74th overall pick in 2022, but he hasn’t yet left the complex and he also hasn’t had his pre-draft velo as a pro (89-92 in my pro looks the last two years). A 5-foot-9 Mexican DSL catcher with advanced defense and bat-to-ball skills, Ponce has very limited physical projection. Cazarez is an athletic 5-foot-11 DSL vert lot righty who’s been up to at least 95 and has a promising 12-to-6 curveball. Meyer is a 6-foot-4 17-year-old DSL righty. He’s a 40 athlete, but his fastball rides and his low-70s curveball has big depth.
Funky Low Slots and Guys Who Can Spin It
- Ty Cummings, RHP
- Logan Gragg, RHP
- Tyler Cleveland, RHP
- Blas Castano, RHP
- Will Schomberg, RHP
- Anyelo Ovando, RHP
Cummings, a seventh rounder last year out of Campbell, is a skinny low-slot righty starter with a low-90s fastball and a good slider. He looks like a potential no. 6-9 starter. Gragg was released by the Cardinals last year after he posted a 5.74 ERA as a Double-A starter. The Mariners signed him and moved him to the bullpen, where he’s had upper-level success as a junkballing righty with five pitches. Cleveland was a starter at Central Arkansa. A low-slot righty, he’s run into walk issues after moving to the bullpen this year. Castano is a loose, skinny, low-slot 25-year-old righty sinkerballer who could make an emergency start at some point in his career. Schomberg is an undrafted free agent out of Davidson with elite breaking ball spin. He’s an older guy who had success throwing a lot of cutters and curveballs to Low-A hitters before his recent promotion. Ovando is a huge-framed 23-year-old A-ball reliever with a messy delivery, a plus curveball, and seven feet of extension.
Contact Bats and Extra Outfielders
- Brock Rodden, 2B
- Cade Marlowe, OF
- RJ Schreck, OF
The switch-hitting Brock Rodden spent two seasons at an Oklahoma JUCO before matriculating to Wichita State, where he had more walks than strikeouts and 17 bombs in both seasons for the Shockers. The diminutive speedster has great looking hitting hands from the left side of the plate and is a good bit less coordinated from the right. He hasn’t really been tested by big velo yet, and I’d like to see him try center field. Marlowe looked like a potential extra outfielder for a number of years, but his strikeout rates have ballooned in Tacoma. He had a 34-game major league debut last year. Schreck is a 23-year-old left fielder from Vanderbilt who is having bat-to-ball success at Everett; his swing is tailor made for the short porch there.
System Overview
Seattle’s big league roster has elite starting pitching and generates inconsistent offense. How appropriate then that the Mariners farm system is stocked with promising young hitters. Aside from Cole Young, who is the most advanced player of the top infield prospects here and a potential near-term solution to Seattle’s issues at second base, these hitters are far from the big leagues and/or often redundant with pieces of the big league roster. Harry Ford is blocked by Cal Raleigh and will probably need a prolonged adjustment period at the dish before he starts hitting big league pitching. Colt Emerson and Young are similar defenders to one another, while J.P. Crawford, who reads through my TV like the team’s spiritual leader, is entrenched at shortstop through 2026.
As the white-hot Astros nip at the heels of a Mariners squad that has seen its division lead shrink from 10 games on June 18 to two game as of publication, there shouldn’t be an untouchable name atop this farm system with the trade deadline approaching. The big chunk of potential everyday hitters at the top of this system is one of the better collections of young bats across baseball even though only a couple of them have star-level ceiling. The lack of a universal Top 20 type talent and Seattle’s below-average overall farm depth have this system sliding in just below the league median. Both the international and domestic amateur scouting departments are responsible for this contingent of potential everyday guys. Pro scouting has had more impact on the big league team than is evident here because Luke Raley, Dominic Canzone, and others graduated in past seasons.
The lack of impact pitching in the system doesn’t feel ominous because the org has tended to do a good job of developing it, which theoretically should continue. Plus, the big league club is already stacked in that regard, though the bullpen could arguably use a bit of reinforcement. The area scouts and analysts who have unearthed good arms later in the draft are helping to maintain pitching depth, and it’s possible that some of the pitchers drafted or acquired recently who are currently injured will inject the system with upside when they return healthy.
