Mariners Minor League Recap, Week 10: June 3 - June 9

The first full slate of the season

Another week of minor league baseball is in the books! Before we dive in, a quick announcement: Starting this week, the site will be pushing out some draft content on a weekly basis. The minor league system obviously has quite a bit of overlap with the annual summer draft and we hope to keep all the LL prospectors informed as best as we can. Until then, enjoy the first writeup of the season that features all four affiliates as well as both the ACL and DSL squads.

Tacoma Rainiers

34-29, 2nd in PCL West

Speaking candidly, the Tacoma Rainiers do not feature much at all in the way of prospects. Yes, Jonatan Clase is back with the team and receiving regular playing time out in centerfield, but outside of him, it’s bleak. With both Ryan Bliss and Tyler Locklear manning the Mariner infield on a regular basis, Tacoma is littered with journeyman types that are unfortunately nothing more than org filler and don’t figure to be in the big league picture. It’s still an entertaining product to watch on the field and the Rainiers are winning games (4-2 this week), but not a whole lot doing for those interested in prospect watching.

The aforementioned Clase showed well this week, totaling a 6-24 week with a whopping nine walks. At this point in his career, Clase needs to see consistent playing time in order to ensure his best possible future. Batting leadoff and manning centerfield routinely is going to do him a whole lot of good for his development long-term. Regardless of how his brief career has gone at the major league level, Clase still possesses several tools that have some serious potential and will help him have a long professional career. The details aren’t fully fleshed out just yet, but he’ll play a role for this 2024 Mariner ball club.

Whether you love or hate to hear it, Carlos Vargas might just be the best in-house option for the current iteration of the Seattle Mariner bullpen. Vargas has long struggled with control in his career, however he’s been throwing more strikes and walking less people in his inaugural year in the Seattle system. He’s still not striking anyone out despite his supreme velocity, but his run prevention has been good for the offense happy PCL and he’s limiting hard contact at a solid rate. Honestly, I think I’d much prefer to have him pitching in Tacoma and refining things just a bit more, but the Mariners may be approaching a point of desperation and Vargas is likely the guy that would be next in line.

Next up: Tacoma takes on Round Rock.

Arkansas Travelers

29-21, 2nd in Texas League North

Arkansas salvaged a split against the league leading Cardinals with a 2-1 Sunday victory. The Travs remain just a half game out of the division lead and will have a great shot at securing a Texas league playoff spot in the coming days. They’ll need a bit of help and a series win would’ve done wonders for their chances, but the ultimate goal is still well within reach.

Premiere prospect Cole Young had a fabulous series against Springfield and has continued his hot hitting after a brief adjustment period to Double-A. Logging a 9-23 week with a homer and a double, Young has raised his season OPS to .798 and continues to play sound defense up the middle at just 20 years old. In fact, since the beginning of May, Young owns a slashline of .300/.388/.482/.869 and is walking nearly as much as he strikes out. His steady eye and hit tool have translated well and he’s starting to get to a bit more power in-game. He doesn’t possess the immense ceiling that some of the other young guns have in this system, but Cole Young is as good of a bet as any prospect in the game to become a quality big league player.

A long unheralded member of the Mariner system, Juan Mercedes has been one of the League’s best pitchers this year. Sporting a 2.50 ERA through 57.2 IP, Mercedes is finding a level of success he hasn’t seen at any point of his career and holds the third best ERA amongst qualified Texas league pitchers. Perhaps it’s just some additional seasoning, perhaps it’s something else. Whatever change he’s seemingly made, it’s clearly paying dividends as we approach the halfway point in the season.

Next up: Texas takes on the Tulsa Drillers, who own the best run differential in the division despite their third place standing.

Everett AquaSox

23-27, 5th in Northwest League

Another week, another Everett split. This marks the fifth series split of the season for the Frogs, a remarkable number considering they’ve only played nine six-game series all season (and actually have a chance to split another series in a postponed game later this month). While splitting a series isn’t inherently a bad thing, they’ll need to start stringing together some wins in order to actually make some headway in the standings. Despite their fifth place standing, Everett holds the third best run differential in the league at +7.

This Everett lineup is in stark contrast to the juggernaut lurking in Modesto, however both Jared Sundstrom and Brock Rodden have been steady all season and are major reasons why this team has stayed afloat in the standings. Rodden, the ideal leadoff man atop the Everett lineup, went 7-20 in the series and stole three bases, bringing his season total to 18. Sundstrom has routinely slugged him home and secured a 10-24 week that included a homer, a triple, and two doubles. Additionally, the 6’3 slugger stole four bases and is an outstanding 11-12 on the base paths on the year. Both he (.880 OPS) and Rodden (.895 OPS) have produced excellently all year and should have a shot at Arkansas this season if they can maintain this level of production.

Another dynamic duo, rotation mates Michael Morales and Brandyn Garcia were both lights out this week. Each hurler was able to secure ten strikeouts in their outing while only allowing one run between them across a combined 11.1 innings. Morales (6 IP 4H 1ER 1BB 10K) relied heavily on his breakers to befuddle opposing hitters while Garcia (5.1 IP 2H 0ER 3BB 10K) overpowered hitters with a sinker in the mid 90’s and a firm slider he was frequently backfooting to righties. They both sit atop the Everett rotation in a sort of “1a, 1b” tandem and are showing promising signs of development.

Next up: Everett tangos with a Eugene team that’s in a tight race for first atop the Northwest League

Modesto Nuts

37-18, 1st in California League North

A rare down week for the dominant Nuts, Modesto dropped four of six against their division rival Fresno in a series that ended with three straight extra inning losses. The Nuts will need to hold a 4.5 game lead over Fresno with just nine games remaining in order to clinch the first half championship.

Despite their losing record, there were still plenty of outstanding performances at the plate this week, particularly from Michael Arroyo and Lazaro Montes. The short statured Arroyo went 8-24 on the series, featuring two homers, a triple, a double, and five walks. Arroyo has been the ideal bridge from lead off hitter Jonny Farmelo and the hulking sluggers in the heart of Modesto’s order all season and has raised his season OPS to an outstanding .853 mark. One of the aforementioned sluggers batting Arroyo in, Lazaro Montes clobbered three homers and a double en route to a 7-22 week at the dish. Montes, who leads the California league in just about every offensive category, currently sports a .985 season OPS and will be launching homers over the Funko Field short porch in no time.

I wanted to give some special appreciation to Lazaro outside of his clearly apparent production. Montes gets a lot of flak nationally for his ability to run, field, and overall athleticism. While these critiques are certainly valid to some extent, it’s apparent he’s put in a ton of work to improve on these traits and so evidently cares about being as good as he possibly can. Easily one of the most fearsome hitters in all of minor league baseball, Montes is always giving 110% and his failures are never for lack of effort. He’ll slide into first base to get the winning run on. He’ll fire up his teammates to spark a rally. Truly, above all else, Montes wants to win, and I’ll never tire of watching him play.

The Nuts pitching had its ups and downs this week, but no one was quite as immaculate as Ashton Izzi. Tossing his first career immaculate inning, Izzi has been one of the top Modesto arms all season and even after his middling start this past week maintains a 2.54 ERA on the year.

The role of “staff ace” is somewhat undefined with several players in the mix for the title, however as it currently lies, Will Schomberg takes the cake. Rocking a 2.55 ERA and a whopping 71 Ks in 53 innings, Schomberg has been a revelation for the Nuts after signing as an undrafted free agent out of Davidson last summer. His control can get a bit a wild at times, but when he’s on, he’s proved dominant.

Next up: The Nuts take on a lowly Visalia team and will look to lock down a division title.

ACL Mariners

14-13, 3rd in ACL West

The baby M’s split their weekly slate of games and maintain their division leading +27 run differential in the process. The team is just 1.5 games back of division leading Texas and is only a game behind a Padres team that’s in the midst of a five game losing streak. They’ll have to find a bit more consistency, but this ACL squad has a shot to do some damage through the coming summer months.

Carlos Jimenez, a 21 year old lefty centerfielder in his second stint of the ACL, is off to a scalding start. Batting .368 with six stolen bases and and an OPS a hair under 1.100, the young Dominican is vying for a promotion to Modesto. I’d expect Jimenez and the uber-talented Celesten (who went 7-22 this past week) to be the first two to get the call up after the inevitable round of promotions we expect to occur once the first half of Modesto’s season comes to an end.

DSL Mariners

1-3, last in Dominican Summer League Central

The DSL has arrived! It’s been tough sledding for the squad thus far, losing their first three games of the season before a resounding 15-4 victory in Saturday’s game. The lineup has looked feeble thus far despite some solid plate discipline numbers and has struggled to impact the baseball consistently. Frankly, DSL numbers aren’t always the most reliable indicator of a player’s ability and the fact they’ve only played four games to date makes much of these results meaningless, however it’s certainly something to monitor as the team gets more game experience under their belt.

Top signee Dawel Joseph is still searching for his first professional hit. Despite this, the young shortstop still boasts a .389 OBP thanks to his six walks through four games. Joseph is not generally regarded with the same pedigree as many of the international amateurs the M’s have signed in years past, however he still possesses some intriguing tools and is currently the player of primary interest for the DSL squad.

That’s another minor league recap in the books! Check in tomorrow for this year’s draft primer and as always, GOMS!