Julio Rodriguez, Dominican Republic, 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.
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.
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: 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.
Julio Rodriguez is a beast and the uncontested number one Seattle Mariners prospect. His numbers were insane. He was better at AA in more at-bats than he was a high A. In 174 at bats, he batted .362 with a 1.007 OPS and he didn’t really hit a lot of home runs, but he hit a lot of balls very hard.
Also, J-Rod barely struck out at both levels, especially Arkansas. If his numbers translate to the big leagues, then the M’s are about to have a new face of their franchise. He deserves Top 3 prospect status from the big three (#2 Baseball America) evaluation sites.
Noelvi Marte has an incredible ceiling and is easily the Mariners’ second-best prospect. Yes, he has a bit of a strikeout problem and played only 8 games at High-A, but he’s on the rise.
Marte’s speed, power combination plays for a middle infielder, and the fact that he could move over to third base gives the Mariners something to look forward to. It’s even more true if they can’t land Kris Bryant. At 20 years old, Marte has some growing and filling out to do as well. He could develop into an absolute terror in the batter’s box.
George Kirby is in the top 100 for MLB and Baseball Prospectus for the third consecutive year, but Baseball America failed to list him until now. The 23-year-old pitcher is a unicorn, with a 100 mph fastball and pinpoint accuracy. That’s unheard of. I’d currently rank him as the Seattle Mariners’ number three prospect.
Kirby walked 6 batters in 88.1 innings during his junior year at Elon. Then he went on to add another 23 innings at Everett without adding to his base-on-balls total. That’s right, just 6 walks in 111.1 innings. His peripheral numbers in the minor leagues last year were fantastic. Aside from the outstanding control, Kirby increased his strikeout percentage while lowering his batting average against. He finished with a 2.53 ERA and 80 strikeouts in 67.2 innings with only 15 walks.
The top three Mariners prospects on the three major lists are J-Rod, N-Mart, and G-Kirb, but here’s where things get wonky. Emerson Hancock is basically contractually obligated to be in the top 100, and there’s a good reason based on his performance when he’s healthy. But honestly, I’d have him near the bottom of our list. There are better prospects, especially at starting pitcher, more on Hancock in a minute.
Matt Brash could wind up as the best “player to be named later” the Mariners ever had. During the 2020 deadline swap with San Diego, M’s General manager Jerry Dipoto sent reliever Taylor Williams to the Padres for a PTBNL. 30 days later, Brash came over from San Diego.
In 2021, the Canadian import made the jump from “no one knew anything about him” to a bonafide Major League prospect. Brash is the organization’s fourth-best prospect but isn’t listed on the MLB or Baseball Prospectus top 100 lists, although he’s 45th on the Baseball America.
His 2021 was not great, not amazing, but legendary with a 2.31 ERA and 142 strikeouts in 97.1 innings. He was better at Double-A than he was a High-A despite pitching in the same amount of games. A strikeout machine, Brash should be on everyone’s radar at this point.
Brandon Williamson’s strikeout numbers were even better than Brash’s last year. Let that sink in for a second.
Williamson struck out 153 in 98.1 innings. The 6’6” right-hander has a plus fastball with a wipeout slider that makes hitters look absolutely foolish at the plate. He is in the top 100 for Baseball America (#83) but doesn’t make the MLB or Baseball Prospectus top 100 for 2022. How does the Minor league leader in strikeouts per 9 not make the top 100 lists for MLB and Baseball Prospectus?
The final Mariners pitcher that should be in the top 100 is Emerson Hancock. His health has been all over the place, and Seattle had to shut him down at the end of 2021 despite only throwing 44.2 innings. He did okay at Double-A Arkansas and managed to get deeper into games from where he was with Everett. Hancock doesn’t give up long balls. In his 44+ innings pitched last year, he gave up one.
Emerson’s pitches are fantastic. A heavy and hard sinking fastball, wipeout slider, decent change-up, and occasionally a curve or slurve. He’s 6’4” and was the sixth overall pick in the 2020 MLB June Amateur Draft. For some reason, Hancock didn’t make the top 100 for Baseball America but did for MLB and Baseball Prospectus.
Jonatan Clase, heard of him? Probably not, because he’s tiny (not really a good reason), young, and just started playing in the states. He’s 5’8” and weighs in at a whopping Dee Gordon (when soaking wet). Clase is lightning fast and did something in 2021 that is unheard of.
Although it was a small sample size, and he’s only 19, Clase successfully stole second base every time it was unoccupied in 2021. Every. Single. Time. Every time, just in case you missed it. He stole 16 bases without being caught in 49 at-bats. Over an entire season, this speedster could challenge the stolen base record, whatever that is for the minor leagues.
Harry Ford is the M’s 2021 first round pick. There is plenty of debate about whether he will stay at catcher, but his bat was good in a small sample size at Rookie ball. Ford had 55 at-bats over 19 games and finished with a .291 average and .982 OPS. Should he be in the top 100? Probably. He’s only going to be 19-years-old, so his time is coming.
The Seattle Mariners should have 9 Top 100 players by my count. In a world where clicks matter more than accuracy, it’s unfathomable that any team could have more prospects in the top 100 than the M’s. Especially with the track record that the Rays and Padres have had with their prospects as of late (outside of Fernando Tatis Jr. and Wander Franco). Not that the Mariners are doing better, but they have an abundance of prospects.
In closing, the Seattle Mariners have a tremendous resource with their prospect capital. I didn’t even get into those close to the Top 100, like outfielder Zach DeLoach who didn’t perform up to his college numbers in his first pro season. Overall, the M’s future is bright and should be burning hot in 2022.
Joe Swenson is quite snarky and often challenges the status-quo mentality when it comes to sports journalism. He’s also an award-winning playwright, screenplay writer, novelist, and the owner and operator of Broken Arts Entertainment.