Mariners Minor League Recap, Week 9: May 27 - June 2 (2024)

Hello fellow prospectors! I have returned from my travels and am ready to talk some Mariner affiliates. Hopefully I’m able to live up to the lofty bar Kate set these past two weeks in my absence. Let’s kick it off like always: Your very own Tacoma Rainiers.

Tacoma Rainiers

30-27, 2nd in PCL West

Tacoma has continued their slow descension into mediocrity after their commendable start to the season, falling in four of the six games this past week. They’ve lost quite a bit of their thump as of late, with prospects Ryan Bliss and Jonatan Clase having been promoted to the big league squad as well as both of Michael Chavis and Brian Anderson opting out of their contracts to re-enter free agency. In the wake of these events, the lineup is underwhelming at best. They’ve had some solid pitching contributors, but I can’t say I’m optimistic about the Rainiers regaining any of their early season success any time soon.

In actually positive news, Tyler Locklear was promoted to the squad and got his first go at PCL pitching after wrecking the Texas league for two months. Triple-A will provide Locklear a chance at seeing some craftier veteran pitchers that rely on pitch mix and deception over pure stuff, a mold of player you just don’t see all that often in Double-A but will assuredly see in the bigs. The professional hitter he is, Locklear is adjusting quickly and is making consistent contact through his first six games. He’s rocketed some balls hard into the outfield and has continued to walk, but his K numbers have ticked up a bit and indicate he still needs this seasoning before his big league call up. Obviously anyone in Tacoma is relatively close to the major leagues, but I wouldn’t expect a call up for Locklear for at least another few months. Perhaps they get aggressive with him, but the move to Triple-A indicates to me that they want him getting as many reps as possible and won’t rush his development in favor of a reactionary promotion. Not taking anything away from his performance at the plate, but I think the extra development is best for his future.

The PCL is not known for dominating pitching performances, but Casey Lawrence certainly had it all working this week. Nearly finishing all nine frames, the veteran right hander neutralized Sacramento hitters and earned one of Tacoma’s wins for the week. He’s in the twilight of his baseball career and has struggled to find consistency this year, but it’s performances like this that prove to everyone that he’s got something left in the tank. A shot at the big leagues this year for Lawrence is slim, but he deserves his flowers for this week’s start.

Next up: Tacoma takes on Reno at home.

Arkansas Travelers

29-21, 2nd in Texas League North

The Travs had another solid week, taking the series 4-2 against Amarillo. They remain in a virtual tie (.5 GB) with Springfield atop their division and will have the opportunity to prove themselves against them this coming week. The Travs have a significantly better run differential than the Cardinals’ affiliate but are perhaps catching them at a poor time as Springfield is in the middle of a four game win streak. They’ll need to continue their excellent pitching and pick up the bats a bit in order to retake the division lead as we approach the home stretch of the first half.

Cole Young has turned things on in a big way after a slow April. In the month of May, Young slashed .298/.375/.524 and is now approaching a season OPS of .800. He’s finding his power stroke more frequently and maintained an excellent (13:10) K/BB ratio while doing so. This past week, he managed a 6-18 performance with six walks and just three K’s. He has been bouncing over to second base a bit more frequently than we had seen in his professional career to date, however I don’t really see this as a big shock. Young has always been a candidate to move over to second, but his performance at short has been more than admirable. This only gives Young more positional flexibility and perhaps enables Seattle to fit him on the big league roster sooner. It’s still firmly a 2025 timeline for the young lefty, but his progress has been tremendous as of late.

I could provide you with the seemingly scheduled “Logan Evans dominated” weekly update, but I’d like to shed some light on someone else this week. To get it out of the way, yes, Logan Evans dominated. Six innings, six K’s, no runs, etc. The dude shoves. He always shoves. He’s probably already pitched himself into the system top 10 after being a 12th rounder less than a year ago. But you’ve heard enough about Evans. I want to talk about Troy Taylor.

There isn’t a better relief prospect currently in the system than Troy Taylor. Also a 12th rounder and famously drafted twice by the Mariners in back to back years, Taylor was a standout in the AFL last year and has been lights out for the better part of two straight seasons. Yet to surrender a run since his promotion to Arkansas, he’s quickly stepped into the high leverage role for the Travs and has thrived. Equipped with a mid 90’s fastball and a tight slider, Taylor is only 22 years old and is one of the more intriguing options for a bullpen role down the stretch. I wouldn’t say it’s likely, but certainly a possibility.

Everett AquaSox

23-27, 5th in Northwest League

I choose to believe Everett is splitting every series this season in some weird performance art piece rather than just being kind of a meh roster at the moment. There are certainly some guys I find interesting in some capacity, but I’m not going to sit here and pretend this roster is anything close to as impactful as Modesto’s or Arkansas’s. They’re gritty and I love that I get to follow them as closely as I do, but I understand why they don’t get as much attention than their system counterparts.

After a poor few weeks to start the season, Brock Rodden has been scorching hot at the plate and is carrying this lineup as the leadoff hitter. Following his month of May where he slashed a gaudy .375/.468/.567, Rodden entered June on a high note with a 9-24 series that included two homers and a triple. The undersized Rodden likely projects as a utility player at the next level and just recently celebrated his 24th birthday while in Hi-A, but last year’s 5th rounder has showed admirably to begin his professional career and is looking like yet another fantastic draft pick out of the 2023 class.

What a month of May it was for Michael Morales. Tallying his fifth start of the month during Friday night’s game, Morales went six scoreless and lowered his monthly ERA down to an outstanding 1.33 mark. The K’s are trending upward and the walks remain at a manageable level. The stuff still isn’t overwhelming, but he’s only 21 years old and is having a fantastic first year out of the Cal league. If he can continue his performance over the summer months, he’ll be rising back up prospect lists and could be one of the better pitching prospects in the entire system.

Next up: Everett clashes with Vancouver as they look to actually win a series and not just tie.

Modesto Nuts

35-15, 1st in California League North

Folks, you can’t get better than this. With a SWWWWWWEEP of six straight Ws against a pitiful Stockton team, the Nuts are 6.5 games up on Fresno with a few weeks to go in the first half race. To do this without arguably their best hitter just shows how absurdly good this team is. There are no holes in this lineup.

Since returning from a brief hiatus on the IL, Tai Peete has been red hot at the plate and is currently riding a 12 game hitting streak. Now up to a .301 season average, Peete is beginning to display some legitimate progression in his contact profile. Furthermore, he’s playing an excellent shortstop in the place of the injured Emerson and has really picked up his base stealing in recent weeks. The swing and miss is still a problem and he’ll need to alleviate that problem if he wants to continue up the minor league ladder, but it’s a welcome site to see after a tough month and change for last year’s 30th overall selection.

Ashton Izzi is proving to be a developmental success this season. After pitching sparingly since his draft year of 2022 for seemingly no other reason than thorough development, Izzi had yet to find professional success entering the year. However, since joining Modesto’s rotation, he’s been exceptional at limiting runs and is flashing some exciting stuff. In fact, he hasn’t allowed a run to score across his last 16 innings and has allowed just five hits across that span. The walks are an issue, but he’s limited damage in a big way and his name has a big green up arrow next to it. Am I fully sold? No. Do I feel tremendously more confident in him than I did entering the season? 1000% yes. He’ll have a place in my top 30 midseason prospects.

Note: There is no word as to why, however Jonny Farmelo was removed midgame and has not played in a few days. There wasn’t anything obvious and the always great MiLB Mariners page on Twitter posted a video of him jogging off from the post game high five line, but it’s definitely something to monitor.

Next up: Modesto will look to bury Fresno next week and put the division out of reach.

ACL Mariners

11-10, 3rd in ACL West

The baby M’s haven’t been playing all that inspiringly as of late and frankly there’s bigger news than their middling 2-3 record on the week. Felnin Celesten, top prospect and star of the squad, was removed midgame and hasn’t appeared in a game since. Without word on what the injury is, all we can do it speculate. Celesten, who missed all of last season with a hamstring injury, has been crushing the ball in his professional debut and was presumably vying for a quick promotion to Modesto. Hopefully he can get back on the field and remain healthy for the remainder of the season.

That’ll do it for this week’s review! With the DSL set to start, next week’s roundup will be the first of the year with every affiliate playing at once. Until then, GOMS!