Top Seattle Mariners Pitching Prospect Talks Specific Pitching Development Change
The Seattle Mariners minor league system is considered one of the best in the in the league.
The Mariners have a plethora of position players in the minors that are featured on various top 100 prospect lists from Baseball America and MLB Pipeline, among others. But the organization's most reputable area of development the past several seasons has been the work they've done with their pitchers.
Seattle's current major league starting rotation has four starters that were drafted and developed by the team: Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo. Emerson Hancock, the team's No. 6 starter who made several starts due to injury, was also drafted by the team. Two of those aforementioned pitchers, Gilbert and Kirby, have received All-Star selections the last two seasons.
The Mariners have several more pitchers in the farm that will eventually make their way to the majors, possibly as soon as 2025. And one of them is starting pitcher Logan Evans.
Evans is considered Seattle's top pitching prospect by several publications covering the minor leagues. And he's likely to appear in the majors in some capacity next season.
Evans played all of 2024 with the Mariners' Double-A affiliate, the Arkansas Travelers. He helped lead them to a Texas League championship. He had a 3.20 ERA in 32 appearances (22 starts) and struck out 98 batters in 107 innings pitched.
Logan Evans was awesome tonight. Final line: 6IP, 4H, 0R, 0BB, 8K, 72-49. Lowers ERA to 1.39. pic.twitter.com/J5h1JDgefw
— Mariners Minors (@MiLBMariners) May 24, 2024
Evans went on the Couch GM podcast a little over a week ago. The host, Connor Webb, talked about an article written by Baseball America that ranked Seattle's minor leaguers high in several advanced pitching statistics. Part of those high marks were due to the reintroduction of the two-seam fastball by the pitching development staff. And, in a clip from the podcast shared on "X" (formerly known as Twitter), Evans discussed the two-seamer further:
"If you look at baseball in a really broad spectrum dating back to the Sandy Koufax (era), he had the ride fastball, and everybody loved that. You'd get the strikeouts. And then everybody's like, 'Oh I got this new invention. Let's try to get ground balls.' Because that's the easiest to field, or whatever. So then everybody goes to the sinker. And then a few years ago, those guys coming up, they're like 'Oh I have this crazy invention, let's try to strike them out so I don't get ground balls, so we go back to the four-seam.' Now, baseball is going back to the two-seam for some organizations. Obviously, in that article ... you can really see that we shoot for that east-to-west (movement). I wouldn't say that they're forcing guys to use two-seam or four-seam. But when you're naturally throwing at your highest velocity, a lot of people's mechanics will take them to have arm side run, so that natural two-seam. A lot of the four-seam guys, they do throw hard. And obviously they throw it at an incredible rate. But it's just so much less natural to throw way over the top than on the side. So that's why I kind of think they're going towards that."
Logan Evans (@loganevans10_) on the Mariners farm system’s migration back to 2 seam fastballs over the 4 seam. #mariners #seattle #tridentsup pic.twitter.com/M9YKxnOXXC
— The Couch GM (@The_Couch_GM) December 31, 2024
On top of being one of the more effective starting rotations in the majors, the Mariners' pitching staff also has one of the most diverse arsenal of throws. Between Gilbert, Kirby and Miller, there's hardly any kind of throw that at least one of Seattle's starting pitchers doesn't throw.
But when the current crop of relievers and starters eventually get their shot in the majors, it seems like the base arsenal they're starting with could be slightly different than what Miller, Gilbert, Kirby and Woo debuted with.
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