Vitamin SEA: Arms Race
The Mariners have too many good pitchers, and it's becoming a problem
Imagine trying to juggle seven balls, and if you drop one, everyone gets really mad at you. Welcome to the Mariners rotation problem.
For years now, the Seattle Mariners have had one of the top rotations in MLB. Even more impressive is that nearly every piece of it was homegrown, rather than trading for established arms. Take a look at the first round picks in the 2018-2020 MLB drafts for Seattle. Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Emerson Hancock. In 2021, they got Bryce Miller in the 4th round and Bryan Woo in the 6th. In 2023 they grabbed Logan Evans in the 12th round. And in the last two years, Ryan Sloan and Kade Anderson were added to the system. A monument to greatness and the most impressive part of Jerry Dipoto’s Mariners tenure. Let’s take a moment to give flowers for this legitimate and fantastic work done to draft all of these incredible arms.
Here’s the problem: there’s too many of them. The current Mariners rotation is overflowing already, with Bryan Woo, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryce Miller, Emerson Hancock, and the lone non-farm system guy, Luis Castillo. Instead of a normal six-man rotation, Luis Castillo and Bryce Miller have been thrown into an odd piggyback scenario that neither man seems to really enjoy. On Monday, after being pulled after throwing four scoreless innings, Luis Castillo seemed to take his frustration out on the bench, throwing his jacket around and looking annoyed. After finishing out the game, Bryce Miller expressed his thoughts on the piggyback simply in the postgame interview: “This setup’s not very comfortable”.
The Mariners are legitimately suffering from having too many good pitchers. Trading any of them would leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, and the only one this year who is actually underperforming in Castillo has a significant price tag on him that would affect his trade value. Castillo is owed $21.6 million this year, and it would be hard to find a suitable trade for him. If having to deal with these six great pitchers was the only problem, it would be a headache and a tough situation. But that’s not the only worry right now.
Kade Anderson has started eight games in AA Arkansas this season. He is 3-0 with a 1.63 ERA, 58 strikeouts to only 7 walks, and a 0.802 WHIP. He is absolutely murdering the minor leagues right now. Anderson looks like a Paul Skenes type to rise through the minor leagues in a single season, and if the Mariners called him up tomorrow nobody would be surprised. But where would he pitch? There’s no room. The Mariners have a genuine ace waiting in the minors that they can’t call up. Anderson might be better than some of the great pitchers in the rotation right now, but it doesn’t make sense to add a seventh player into this already dicey rotation situation.
If that wasn’t enough, there are two more names that I’ve mentioned already that are floating around. Logan Evans had a strong showing last season, but will miss this season with Tommy John surgery. He’ll be back in 2027 to make things more crowded, but he might find his spot taken by Anderson. Evans doesn’t have the ceiling that the rest of the rotation has, but he’s a consistent arm and a great guy to have when someone goes down. But with the logjam, Evans might not be the guy to go to anymore. The other name I mentioned is Ryan Sloan, the other threat in the minor leagues right now. Sloan and Anderson are both in every top 50 prospect list, even if Sloan’s numbers don’t jump off the page like Anderson’s do. Sloan’s 5.17 ERA this season in Arkansas doesn’t paint the full picture. Sloan has received a lot of praise for his pitch mix and his nasty stuff, and even if the results aren’t fully there this year, he has a major upside to the point that with these numbers he still makes every prospect ranking list.
So how do the Mariners solve this logjam? I have no idea. Getting rid of any of these arms would suck, but they can’t keep everyone, there just isn’t enough room. I’m really glad this isn’t a decision that I have to make, but no matter what the choice ends up being, someone will end up angry.
Go M’s
Henry “Remember when our best pitcher was Chris Flexen?” Neiman