Seattle Mariners: Breaking the Status Quo Mentality of the Top 100 MLB Prospects
Joe Swenson
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This is the time of year when baseball’s Top 100 prospect lists come out. Per their status quo, the major sites are undervaluing the Seattle Mariners.
So many Major League Baseball prospect lists have future Seattle Mariners littered all over them. And that’s with three graduating from prospect status last season. Logan Gilbert, Jarred Kelenic, and Taylor Trammell all spent a couple of seasons in the top 100 with MLB, Baseball America, and more. But the ranking sites do the M’s prospects a disservice with their status quo mentality.
Don’t Be Fooled By The Top 100 Prospect Lists
According to the recent MLB Pipeline Top 100 prospects list, the Mariners have five that warrant inclusion: Julio Rodriguez (2), Noelvi Marte (11), George Kirby (33), Emerson Hancock (34), and Harry Ford (98). Baseball Prospectus only has four: Julio Rodriguez (3), Noelvi Marte (15), George Kirby (21), and Emerson Hancock (87).
I’m going to go out on a limb and call BS. I get that MLB and Baseball Prospectus and other top 100 prospect sites sit in a room. Their discussion probably goes something like this.
Prospect Discussion: A Fictional Play
MLB Stat Guru: Looking at the trajectory, minor league war –
MLB Prospects Executive: Is that a thing?
MLB Stat Guru: Of course it is. Anyway, it looks like the Mariners have nine top 100 prospects.
MLB Prospects Executive: How many do the Padres and Rays have?
MLB Stat Guru: Why?
MLB Prospects Executive: Seriously, you nerds just don’t get it, right?
MLB Stat Guru: Get what?
MLB Prospects Executive: There has to be representation from every team, and no team should have more than six unless they are the Padres and Rays?
MLB Stat Guru: The numbers show that Jonatan Clase, Matt Brash, and Brandon Williamson should be in the top 100 for the Mariners.
MLB Prospects Executive: I don’t give a (beep) what the numbers show. Until recently, no one cared about the Mariners farm system. They might be great, but they don’t do anything to increase our web traffic.
MLB Stat Guru: I don’t understand you people. You ask me to crunch the numbers, and I have, you ask me to come up with a top 100, and I did. Then you handcuff me to a cap on the number of prospects per team?
MLB Prospects Executive: It’s a business; we run a business, and that business needs to be accessible to all fans, and the easy sacrifice is to limit the prospects from the darkest corner of our league.
MLB Stat Guru: I think emerald green is pretty, not dark.
Baseball America Prospect Guru enters
Baseball America Prospect Guru: Hey guys, sorry I’m late. Where are we with the Seattle Mariners?
(MLB Stat Guru hands BAPG the latest report reflecting 5 Mariners)
MLB Prospects Executive: How many Mariners do you have in the top 100?
Baseball America Prospect Guru: Wow, you guys are morons.
(BAPG exits)
MLB Prospects Executive: What was that about?
(Stats Guru pulls out his laptop, logs on to Baseball America, and flips the screen around to show MLB PE)
MLB Stats Guru: You wouldn’t get it; it’s an accuracy thing.
I don’t want to champion any conspiracy theories out there that might involve this scenario, but yeah, it’s probably a thing. While I don’t have first-hand knowledge, it’s literally the only thing that makes sense.