Seattle Mariners Top 25 Prospects

The headliner of Seattle’s exceptional 2023 draft class, Emerson offers one of the best blends of tools and skills in all of the minor leagues. It starts with the bat, which projects plus. Emerson’s hands are fast and he’s able to direct the barrel to all quadrants of the zone. He sees spin early out of the hand and adjusts seamlessly off the fastball. His strike zone judgement is advanced. Even though he isn’t particularly big or projectable, he’s grown into average power quickly and probably has another half-gear left in him. The nitpick so far has been that Emerson tends to hit a lot of balls on the ground, but even there you can see progress: He’s showing an ability to turn on and drive fastballs in spurts, and he’s the kind of high-aptitude player who you can project to do so more often as he grows.

Defensively the arrow is up. Fully healthy from the fractured foot that sidelined him during the summer of 2024, Emerson looked much more spry at shortstop in 2025. His range was better, but he’d also progressed on some of the little things: footwork around the bag, getting the ball out quicker, charging more aggressively, etc. His ability to grow in real time is remarkable. More than once, I saw him either misplay something or take an imperfect angle in a game on Tuesday, and then handle the same ball perfectly three days later. It’s this as much as anything driving the defensive projection. I’ve long been skeptical that Emerson would be able to stay at short with his size and speed, and still think there’s a good chance he needs to move to third base at some point, but for now it looks like he can be average or maybe even a tick better there.

There are plenty of good prospects — including some on this list — who divide opinion among evaluators, data darlings who appeal to analysts but not scouts, or scout favorites who leave the wonks cold. Emerson is not that kind of player. He lights up just about everything a model tends to like. Quality performance while being young for the level? Check. Demonstrable power? Yes. Great swing decisions? You know it already. Scouts also love the way this guy plays. He busts it out of the box, his head is always in the game, and he’s constantly looking for ways to take an extra base. He has several ideally calibrated characteristics: He’s confident but not cocky, fiery and competitive but not a danger to himself.

As a recovering creature of the Moneyball era, I’m still working through my thoughts on what it means to be “clutch,” but Emerson sure seems to have a knack for rising to the occasion in a tight spot. If you’re ever inclined to round up on a guy with intangibles or an “it” factor, he’s the player to bet on. Even if you’re not, Emerson’s ability and proximity alone warrant the top slot here. His feel to hit makes him as safe of a player as we’ll rank this year —yeah, yeah I know, nobody’s a guarantee, we’re dealing in relative terms here — and there’s star upside if he learns to pull and lift regularly, as he seems to be on the cusp of doing. He’s not an electric athlete like Bobby Witt Jr., and thus perhaps not a threat to go supernova and throw down a 10-WAR season, but he projects as a guy who can rack up 3 to 4 WAR every year for a long, long time.

Can I interest you in three plus pitches? How about from a good athlete with a traditional, workhorse build? Maybe if I told you he ran a sub-2/9 walk rate across both levels of A-ball as a 19-year-old?

Sloan was an over-slot second-round selection out of an Illinois high school in the 2024 draft and it sure looks like the Mariners nailed the pick. He’s a big, physical kid, and while there’s moderate effort to his delivery, the mechanics are simple and he repeats them well, especially for his age and build. He’ll touch 99 and sits comfortably in the 94-97 mph range with a bit of life up in the zone. Both the slider and split project plus. The former is the less consistent of the two, but it flashes 70 with hard and late two-plane depth when Sloan spins it just right. Both are swing-and-miss pitches and go a long way toward explaining how he struck out 10/9 while living in the strike zone.

Sloan throws a ton of strikes. He walked just 15 guys in 82 innings — none over a three-start cameo in High-A at the end of the year — and pounds the zone with the fastball in particular. He can hit the box with his secondaries as well, though they also generate a bunch of strikes below deck. The only real nitpick here is that Sloan locates mostly to the glove side. The way he falls off the rubber and takes his arm with him explains why, and while he’ll probably develop more feel for the arm side as he progresses, that tendency could be fairly sticky. The predictability in his locations is the most obvious nitpick in his game, and finding a way to hit other spots should be a primary developmental priority in 2026.

That shouldn’t detract much from all the good things going on here. We want to see Sloan stretched out more before we really go nuts, but this looks like a no. 2 starter, and he’s on the short list of minor leaguers who are even in the conversation for a no. 1 projection. The usual caveats apply: Pitching is volatile, throwing hard is risky, and you’d have more confidence in the long-term quality of his stuff if we’d seen him throw more than 70 pitches a start. But the upside is sky-high here, and it’s not too early to say Sloan is one of the best pitching prospects in baseball.

Anderson was a 1:1 candidate after a dominant season at LSU, but had to “settle” for the third pick and the second-highest bonus in the 2025 class. He is a spindly, 6-foot-2 lefty who’ll show you four plus pitches. His fastball sits 92-95 mph with vertical ride, and it plays up because his loose arm action hides it until the very last moment. It generated a whopping 35% miss rate in 2025. The way his fastball plays means Anderson’s command of it doesn’t have to be precise; it rides enough to evade barrels in the strike zone. His slider, a mid-80s offering with big two-planed wipe, is often a pitch he goes to when he needs a strike, and he threw it for strikes at a 70% clip this year. His curveball and changeup usage doesn’t exceed that of his slider, even against right-handed hitters. That might change in pro ball, as Anderson’s changeup (which he sells with his whip-cracking arm speed) has enough late action to miss bats, and his curveball has lovely downward trajectory and depth that should make it a platoon neutralizer. He can also dump the curveball in the zone for strikes.

Anderson is definitely a control-over-command type; he doesn’t have great touch and feel for surgical location. He’s a power pitcher, and his stuff plays like a power pitcher’s despite the velocity. He doesn’t have ideal size like Paul Skenes, who looks like he eats 200 innings for breakfast; he’s skinnier and has just the one year of being stretched out like this, though his stuff was crisp late in the season. This is a fast-moving mid-rotation starter who has the toolkit to get just about anyone out. Whether Anderson starts in Double-A or not, he should get there quickly and a 2026 debut isn’t out of the question.

The second of Seattle’s 2023 first round picks, Farmelo signed for a little more than $3 million out of a Virginia high school. He was a tools bet at the time, a plus athlete with big power and blazing speed. He hit the ground running from the time he reached instructs and quickly moved onto our Top 100 list. Injuries have since taken a bite out of Farmelo’s career. A torn ACL ended his 2024 season in mid-June, and then a stress fracture in his ribs put him on the shelf for most of 2025; even counting the Arizona Fall League, he’s played in fewer than 100 professional games.

Farmelo’s physicality facilitates a big power projection and a chance to get to it reliably. He has a fast bat and is already posting major league average exit velocities, with the kind of frame and twitch that suggests another grade of impact is on the way. He has a low-ball swing geared for loft, and while the bat path isn’t perfectly direct, his hands are fast enough to at least be competitive on pitches up. He’s an explosive rotator, and when he gets a pitch in his wheelhouse and turns on it, he looks every bit like a big leaguer.

Farmelo’s feel for contact isn’t great right now. In addition to the vulnerability upstairs, he’s also swinging over a lot of breaking balls. Some days he looks caught in between, and you can see why he posted a contact rate of just 65% last season. The stop and start nature of his 2025 season may have a lot to do with that, and he may well start hitting for more contact when he can just play every day, but it’s a flag regardless.

The injuries also have limited Farmelo’s chance to mature in center field, where his reads and routes remain a work in progress. He was a no-doubt 70 runner prior to the ACL tear and looked darn close to that late last summer, but he’s also a bigger guy with a couple injuries on the ledger now. On tools and athleticism, he projects as a center fielder, but there are things to monitor here. All of this makes him a volatile prospect. With that hit risk comes five-tool upside, however, and perhaps the highest ceiling in the system.

If Colt Emerson is the captain of the High Floor side of the prospect continuum, Montes is a good avatar for the boom-or-bust prototype. The recipient of $2.5 million bonus in the 2022 international class, Montes was signed for his immense power. He’s a huge guy who has retained his 70 raw projection even as he’s gotten trimmer since signing. He has generated a 116 mph exit velocity, knocked balls over the batter’s eye in consecutive games in Hillsboro’s cavernous yard, and can put on a show in BP. In the words of one scout, “it looks like he’s hitting a Titleist.”

You can probably already guess where the bust risk comes from. While he’s not helpless against spin or totally bereft of plate discipline, Montes is looking to drive the ball with every swing. His contact rates, in zone and overall, are not good, at the bottom of the viability range, and he’s doing that against A-ball and Double-A arms, not big leaguers. He struck out in 30.5% of his Double-A plate appearances in 2025, and it’s hard to imagine his total being all that much lower at the highest level. There’s a chance he just didn’t hit enough to profile.

I’m not quite as high on him as the scouts who think he could be the heir to Yordan Alvarez, but there are reasons for optimism here. Montes is only just 21, and even with all those strikeouts, he was still a pretty good hitter overall at Double-A. His chase rate isn’t low exactly, but it’s low enough, particularly with two strikes, to think there’s some discernment here. Mechanically, there are things to like as well. For his size, Montes isn’t particularly long-levered. He has a big load, but he’s on time, he’s able to get his barrel to pitches up, and he can cover the inner part of the plate. His swings are also big but not reckless; his head is pretty still through contact. I don’t see a plus hitter or anything, but he could well be a 40 and that would play just fine.

He’s never going to win a Gold Glove, but the progress Montes has made defensively deserves praise. In 2023, he looked like a disaster, a surefire DH who didn’t do anything well out in right field. He’s put a ton of work in since and it shows. His ability to track a ball and make plays at the edge of his range have grown tremendously, and he’s turned his strong but wild arm into a playable tool. Just as encouragingly, he’s shown an aptitude for the little things. Imagine a sequence where a single to left produces an overthrow to the plate and the hitter winds up with a big lead after rounding second base: How many right fielders would even think to sneak up on that runner for a possible back pick? Montes did. It’s not a play that’s likely to recreate itself much, but the hustle and foresight speaks to why I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt out there.

Ultimately though, Montes will go as far as his bat takes him. The range of outcomes is pretty wide here, from a Quad-A bat to 40-homer star. You can justify a lot of projections, and while I’m higher on him than Eric has been over the last couple of years, I don’t think Eric’s forecasts were at all unreasonable. I just see so much power, and enough ability to get to it so far, to keep the glass half full. With 70 pop, Montes has passed the crucial threshold where he can mishit balls the other way and still put them in the seats. For me, he projects as a flawed but potent middle-of-the-order bat.

Signed for $1.37 million in 2022, Arroyo is the best Colombian prospect in the game. The compactly built second baseman is a well-rounded player with good feel to hit, a sound approach, surprising pop for his size, and a chance to stick at the keystone.

Arroyo’s setup and swing are unorthodox, but so far have been effective. He starts in a closed stance and dives out toward the plate. His hands load high and then he immediately drops the barrel head in a scooping bat path. On last year’s list, Eric comped his swing to Nick Castellanos‘, and that’s a good visual. His bat speed is just average or a tick above, but Arroyo’s short levers and pitch recognition skills help him reach pitches throughout the zone, and for a guy who’s closed off, his ability to get to pull-side lift has always stood out. It’s possible that elite velocity will limit his ability to cover the upper part of the zone, and I’m also worried about pitches inside, and not just his ability to hit them: Arroyo’s hands are in a vulnerable position when he strides, and he tends to get drilled a fair amount there. It would not shock me if there’s a broken hamate or wrist in his future.

For all those risks, there’s a lot to like. Statistically, there aren’t many red flags. Arroyo’s contact rate is good, he doesn’t chase much, and his swing rate on balls in the heart of the plate is 91% — one of the highest in the system. Visually, his approach is mature as well. He takes his walks, drives what he can, and tends to be a pesky out.

Defensively, Arroyo is a work in progress. He has the range to cover second, but neither his hands nor his arm are particularly reliable. His stroke is inconsistent, and while I don’t want to use the “y” word here, there are spells when even routine throws can sail on him; a switch to left field is in play if this doesn’t get better. Regardless of where he ends up, he’ll need to hit to profile. And despite some of the concerns I have with his swing, the projection here is for Arroyo to do so, and to be a cog in the lineup and a regular threat to go deep.

Seattle’s top signee from the 2023 international class, Celesten shook off the injury bug long enough to suit up more than 100 times combined across both A-ball levels in 2025. At times, there was understandable rust on both sides of the ball, but he also flashed the ability of an elite shortstop prospect, and has continued to play well amidst inconsistent playing time in the Dominican Winter League.

Celestin is an above-average athlete and a switch-hitter with a fast bat from both sides. It’s a power-over-hit cut — he swings hard, pulls off the plate, and has a steep path conducive to damage but also swing and miss — and he should grow into at least above-average pop. Perhaps the most impressive thing is how he’s performed almost identically as a righty and lefty— all the more notable given that there are measurable differences in how his respective swings work. His contact rates aren’t great, but they’re fine for someone his age, particularly factoring in the lost reps.

Celestin’s defensive instincts are good. He has a keen sense for when he can get in front of the ball and when he has to move a little quicker, he knows when he has to hurry a throw and when he has an extra beat, and he’s shown an adaptability to the moment. In one recent LIDOM sequence, he picked up a high chopper in front of second and a little to the first base side of the bag, took two steps to his left to tag a sliding runner, and then spun and fired a strike for the double play. That’s really good feel, especially for someone playing with and against guys many years his senior. That buoys an otherwise unremarkable defensive projection. At short, Celestin’s range is adequate but not outstanding, while his glovework and throwing accuracy should be fine in the end but remain a work in progress.

Celestin is rawer at the plate than most players on our Top 100, but the physicality, offensive tools, and defensive instincts justify a lofty projection. He’s a potential five-tool player, and while he may have a longer development timeline than most guys with his upside, the payoff could be significant. He’ll return to Everett to start the 2026 season.

As a power-hitting catcher with strong receiving skills, Stevenson was seen as a potential top-10 selection heading into his draft season. He slid to the 35th pick of the 2025 draft after swing-and-miss issues plagued his junior season and raised questions about the viability of his hit tool.

Stevenson is trading contact for power. There are a lot of markers in his swing — the flatter path, still head, direct stride — that tend to correlate with hitting ability, and while he’s a bit vulnerable to spin, his advanced approach limits that to some degree. But there’s some length to the path, and Stevenson has just average bat speed (in the way that scouts have traditionally used the term). That fosters a power-and-OBP-over-hit profile, but there’s enough hand-eye and bat-to-ball skill to think it all could work.

Defensively, Stevenson’s a good receiver with quiet and supple hands. His control of the running game is below average — his transfers are low and they aren’t quick, and his throws can get a little scattered — but still playable, and the kind of thing that we can project improvement on. Cal Raleigh wasn’t very good at this when he was drafted, either.

Add it all up on both sides of the ball and you can see how this might work. Stevenson isn’t a risk-free prospect and evaluators are split on his long-term upside; I’m a little higher on him than Eric. There’s a chance the bat speed gets exposed against elite stuff, but I don’t think a .230/.300/.400 line with average or better defense is out of the question at maturity. That would be a 50, and if there’s any jump in Stevenson’s throwing ability or bat-to-ball as he develops, he’ll climb into that tier on subsequent lists.

Seattle’s big splash in the 2025 international class, Bautista signed for $2.1 million and was widely viewed as one of the top talents available. He certainly stands out physically: He’s both lithe and strong for his size, twitchy, very projectable, and already bringing the kind of present power and speed you want to see when you sink a quarter of your bonus pool into one guy. His 90th-percentile exit velocity in 2025 was 105.4 mph (Josh Naylor’s was a full tick lower, for reference), which was both better than we’d have guessed and came at no cost to his plus speed.

I don’t know if he can hit. First, Bautista’s swing is complicated. He’s a late lander with a big leg kick, and he has a long, uphill path that starts with a late load and big hitch down. It’s not impossible to make that work, but your hands better be quick (check) and your timing has to be very good (Bautista’s isn’t right now). Partly because of the path, partly from the high effort level in his swing, he’s often late to the party on heaters and every swing at a breaking ball looks like he’s seeing spin for the first time. I don’t want to get too hung up on DSL numbers, but his 30% strikeout rate, 62% contact rate, and 52% whiff rate on breaking balls reflect the magnitude of the issue here.

Athletes like this deserve a long runway to figure things out. Bautista will spend 2026 on one of the complexes, and he’s young enough that even modest improvement in his spin recognition or timing would be a very good sign. He isn’t on the fast track, though, and the volatility in this profile is reflected in his placement on this list.

Meet the highest-variance stateside player in the system. Becker is a cold-weather prep bat out of New Jersey who signed for an over-slot $2.75 million as Seattle’s second-round pick in the 2025 draft. He’s a good athlete and plus runner who projects to develop above-average power while staying at shortstop, which is a starter pack for a star if there’s enough hit skill to go with it.

About that. Anything can work, but Becker’s swing misses most of the marks we normally associate with a projectable hit tool. His cut looks stiffer than you’d guess if you’d just watched him glide around the infield, his hands load low, the bat path is very steep, and he’ll have to prove he can adjust the barrel and reach pitches up in the zone. He did not look comfortable against spin in a week’s worth of Low-A at-bats following the draft. I don’t want to ding him for that exactly, but you can at least add it to the long list of things clouding his hit projection.

Athletes from states without a high caliber of local baseball are understandably rawer than their peers from baseball hotbeds. Sometimes guys like this make big, difficult-to-forecast changes when exposed to better pitching and professional instruction. And of course there’s always a chance Becker hits the ground running just as he is. Still, my instinct is that he’ll have to acclimate to pro ball. The defense and power are good enough to carry a big league profile, and he definitely has the ceiling of a regular. Were I projecting for a team, I’d put a low-conviction everyday grade on him. On our scale, as far away and risky as he is, that translates to this FV tier.

This report is from Eric Longenhagen’s overview of the 2026 international class: Rijo was one of the class’ smaller players at the onset of the scouting timeline, but he was skilled enough as a center field defender and contact hitter to be notable anyway. He’s grown during the last year plus and is now closer to an even six feet tall. That’s still smaller than the top-of-the-class hitters who might add multiple grades of power between now and maturity, but few of those guys can play defense like Rijo or track the baseball like he can. It’s not impossible for players Rijo’s size to develop power (Cedric Mullins is a good example), but it’s still more common for hitters like this to turn into part-time outfielders rather than stars.

Born in Cooperstown, McGraw shares a first and last name with Hall of Famers. He’s not that kind of prospect, but the Wake Forest alum was seen as a potential first-round pick before injuries slid him to the third round of the 2023 draft. Injuries are regrettably a big part of the profile here: He’s had Tommy John twice and missed the start of the 2025 season with a flexor strain. When healthy, the stuff is plenty good. McGraw can dial his two-seamer up to 97, and the pitch has above-average tail out of a low-three-quarters slot. He has an above-average change with similar movement, but it’s the slider that projects to really miss bats, a hard sweeper that touches 90 and already grades as a plus pitch.

The command/control piece is a little more nuanced than usual here. McGraw isn’t a great athlete and when he’s out of synch (or simply catches his front cleat on the dirt and loses balance), he can miss pretty badly. But he also has spurts where he pounds the glove well, and he shows nascent feel for hitting both sides of the plate. There’s thus some push and pull in the profile. With all his missed time, and the quality of his secondaries, you can dream on McGraw as a five-and-dive starter, or a hybrid arm at the very least. The injury history is pretty scary, though, and Seattle might feel motivated to push him quickly in a short-stint role, where he’d have late-inning upside.

Hugus transitioned from the Cincinnati Bearcats bullpen to the Miami Hurricanes rotation and blossomed, posting career-best numbers across the board amidst a huge innings jump. That performance, along with above-average athleticism and interesting pitch data, spurred the Mariners to select him in the third round of the 2025 draft; he signed for an under-slot $640,000.

While he can dial his fastball up to 95, it tends to sit 91-93 and instead misses bats and barrels due to the pitch’s carry. Hugus gets down the mound well, and he’s able to add to that deception with above-average extension and a pretty low release height for his high slot. He’s got good feel for spinning two breaking balls, and the slider projects above average. Developing a more functional changeup is among his biggest developmental priorities in 2026.

Hugus’ control is ahead of his command, and the higher-effort nature of his delivery suggests that might always be the case. Still, there’s starter upside here. The Mariners have been impressed with his aptitude for picking up new concepts and pitch ideas quickly, which bodes well for a late-bloomer with athleticism and a pitch mix that seems likely to expand (he threw his fastball and slider more than 90% of the time at Miami). It’s worth exhausting Hugus as a starter, as the prospect of pro coaching in a strong development system gives him a shot to exceed expectations and work in some kind of length role. He’s one whom sources have convinced me to push higher than my additional assessment. Many pro departments ask their scouts to rank relief risk on a scale of one (surefire starter) to 10 (clearly a reliever); I still lean seven in the long run, but Hugus, and my assessment of his chances to start, grew on me throughout the evaluation process.

After barely playing at Louisville for two years, Dickerson transferred to Indiana, where he became a middle-of-the-order threat and parlayed a strong junior season into a third-round selection. He’s a plus athlete and runner, and his college exit velocities suggest at least above-average raw power as well. More on that in a minute.

Dickerson’s feel to hit will be tested in pro ball. His hip leaks early and his swing path leaves him vulnerable both up and on the outer half of the dish. Somewhat concerningly, just about all of his damage as a Hoosier came on hanging breaking balls or slow and misplaced heaters. Guys who can locate soft stuff low and away were able to get him fishing pretty reliably, and it’s worth noting that the competition he faced in the Big Ten was not particularly robust. If the hit tool proves shaky, as seems very possible, there will be a ton of pressure on him to do damage. Here again, mysteries abound, as the college game is in the midst of a runaway power boom. Whether from the balls, the bats, or some combination of the two, it’s hard to take bat speed and exit velos at face value. On paper, Dickerson could have plus raw, but I don’t feel comfortable projecting it until I see him do it with wood.

Defensively, Dickerson projects to play an above-average center field. It isn’t easy to assess routes and reads off the bat over video, but he looks competent in the limited material available, and the closing speed and knack for making plays at full stretch are both evident. With his wheels, he looks like a lock to stay up the middle. Add it all together and you have a center fielder with at least a puncher’s chance of developing into a power-over-hit regular. In my view, this is the kind of player that big league clubs should like more than, say, fantasy players. Good hitters are scarce and there’s a chance Dickerson grows into a productive one; it’s worth a roll of the dice near the top of the draft. But the hit tool looks shaky and for now I feel better projecting him in a platoon role.

Facing a 40-man roster crunch, the Dodgers shipped Ortiz to Seattle in exchange for Tyler Gough. The southpaw reached Triple-A last season and is poised to debut at some time in 2026. He’s an uncomfortable at-bat for lefties. Ortiz’s tendency to miss up and arm side keeps hitters honest and has an effectively wild bent to it, particularly given his aptitude for front-dooring a sweeping slider over the plate. He’s mostly a fastball-breaking ball guy, but he has an average change that should help him limit platoon issues. He’s on the optionable reliever/second lefty out of the ‘pen line.

Peters was selected in the fourth round out of Dallas Baptist in the 2025 draft. He hasn’t thrown many high-level innings — just 42.1 at DBU and a handful more on the Cape — but he’s pretty advanced despite that lack of experience. He’s around the plate with his four-pitch mix, and his curve in particular reliably has a sharp, 1-7 shape. Peters isn’t especially athletic or projectable, and so while I think his command will tick up with reps, this might be a case where the stuff is what it is. It makes sense to develop him as a starter — he made a handful of starts for the Patriots down the stretch — and he could be a no. 5 if the change exceeds this forecast, but he projects as a reliable middle reliever.

Of Seattle’s brigade of strike-throwing length guys who project as up-down depth, Perez is the one who makes the most sense to try in shorter stints. His generic fastball isn’t going to work multiple times through an order, he doesn’t have much of a change, and while the slider flashes above-average, its long, two-plane shape could really use another gear. Perez has the command to work both sides of the plate, so there’s a foundation here for a functional, if lower-upside, reliever if he can add a little more oomph on the ball in relief. As is, as a starter he struck out fewer than five per nine across 56.1 Double-A innings, upper-level depth kind of numbers.

Little arrived and pitched at Vanderbilt when he was just 17 and was part of the Commodores rotation with Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker during his freshman year. He later transferred to LSU, where he was teammates with Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews on the Tigers’ 2023 College World Series-winning team. Along the way, he lost his feel for the zone somewhat and ended his college career in relief.

Picked in the 11th round of the 2024 draft, Little is starting again in Seattle’s system, where he’s throwing more strikes, though not so many to think he’ll stay in the rotation long-term. Instead, he could be a fastball-reliant reliever. He runs the heater up to 98 and, with nearly 20 inches of vertical break, tends to miss plenty of bats with it. He’s good at spotting the fastball up but otherwise has fringy control and command. The arsenal is deep but without much present heft. He’ll flash an average change and occasionally spin a very good curve, but he’s not consistent with either, and the slider is below average. It’s sort of a strange mix of strengths, but you can squint and see a pretty good fastball-power curve mix: Little’s raw spin grades are promising and the curve isn’t soft by any means, even in longer outings. The imprecision and lack of a present power breaking ball limits my conviction in the upside here. I’m hedging a little with my optionable-reliever grade; there’s upside beyond that if Little finds a consistent breaking ball.

Morales has long projected as a depth starter and that forecast hasn’t changed this year. He’s built like a starter and has a textbook, flowing delivery with the kind of body control that supports the lofty command projection he carries here. He repeats his motion very well, to the point where it’s almost fair to wonder if part of his problem missing bats and barrels stems from how easy it is to time him up. Whether it’s deception, velocity, another pitch, or a shape tweak, Morales will need to come up with something to miss a bat because he doesn’t throw all that hard, lacks an out pitch, and isn’t a big groundball guy. He has time and the physical foundation to do so, and has a no. 5 ceiling as a strike-thrower who can eat innings, but he’s tracking like more of a no. 6/7 type right now.

Castaño is a fun watch. He’s a small, lower-slot guy who generates big horizontal movement on all four of his offerings, and his ability to run his stuff on and off the plate helps him limit damage on contact. He’s got a big personality out there, which works for and against him: outward competitiveness is great, emotionally-charged ABS-challenges less so. Castaño’s ability to generate grounders is good but not special enough to work as a full-time starter, given his lack of a bat-missing secondary. He briefly debuted in 2025 and projects as a no. 6/swing type.

Rodden’s a little second baseman with sneaky pop and a good glove. An oblique strain and broken hamate limited him to 37 Double-A games last season, but he posted a 139 wRC+ in that time and hit for power in a park that tends to suppress it pretty significantly. A small guy with a big swing, Rodden has traded contact for power, and both his power grades and swing and miss rates are out of step with his physical appearance. For now, the trade is working, but he may need to give a little back to keep the hit tool viable against better competition.

Defensively, Rodden is solid-average at second base and has the range for short. His arm is light, though, and the effort required of him to get the ball to first base limits his ability to get outs on balls he can reach. I suspect he’ll start to get outfield reps soon to enhance his positional versatility. On both sides he plays with a competitive edge that I’m generally inclined to round up on; the dreaded “scrappy” label is justified here. Rodden projects as an up-down utility infielder who can fake it at short, though there’s a chance he strikes out too much to be more than upper-level depth.

Suisbel’s slow but steady progression through Seattle’s system hit a snag in High-A in 2025. He hit just .211/.308/.412 in a very power-friendly park and whiffed more than 25% of the time. A switch-hitter, Suisbel’s feel for contact is just fair. He swings often and chases too much. He has a steep swing path and just okay bat speed — better from the left side than the right — and is only able to really drive pitches in the lower part of the zone.

Defensively, Suisbel has always looked fringy at third. He was clearly playing through something painful in my eval last spring, but even trying to adjust for that, he has step-and-a-dive range with adequate hands and instincts. He can play there, but I’m skeptical he’ll get to average.

The one thing that could change the equation here is if Suisbel drops the right-handed swing. Statistically and visually he’s superior as a lefty — he looks stiff and off balance as a righty — and perhaps a full boat of reps from that side would unlock some of the missing bat-to-ball skill that’s dampening his profile at the moment. Right now, he looks like a corner bench bat with enough impact and defensive utility to stick on a roster, but you can squint and see a path to more. For what it’s worth, Eric has historically liked him more than I do, and his value here is a hedge that bridges the gap in our projections.

Cleveland is a submariner with a funky delivery. He starts on the first base side of the rubber and lands with his back foot nearly in the grass toward the third base dugout. His release is very low and at an angle hitters basically never see. He’s also using a four-seamer instead of a two-seamer, giving him one further oddity with which to separate himself. It’s plus-plus deception and he was impossible to lift (zero homers in 50-plus innings), but the stuff is pretty soft even for a guy like this. He’s still miles more interesting now than he was as a generic sidearm starter two years ago. Teams like to give hitters a lot of different looks out of the bullpen, and between that and Cleveland’s ability to keep the ball on the ground, he’s probably going to get a shot to see if this all works against elite hitters.

Seattle’s 19th-rounder back in 2023, Pagliarini offers plus raw power in a mid-size package. On paper, he’s a versatile defender who can play up the middle, and he has a history of getting to damage (38 homers in just over 1,000 professional at-bats). That’s papering over a lot of cracks, though, as the power comes with a lot of swing and miss. While he doesn’t have a slow bat, the Connecticut native has a long path and has trouble adjusting off the fastball; his miss rate on spin was over 40% in 2025. Meanwhile, on defense Pagliarini started games at first, second, and in left last year, but he’s below average at all of them. As an old-for-the-level 24-year-old who just hit .224 in High-A, the bust risk is high here. The power is intriguing, though, and it’s worth staying patient with a cold-weather guy. Maybe he’ll have Ryan Schimpf’s peak.

This is another report from Eric’s overview of the 2026 international class: My notes from conversations with scouts more than a year ago had Pio’s bonus at just north of $4 million, but closer to signing day there’s agreement throughout the industry that it will be more like $2.5 million. Either my initial information was incorrect, or Pio has trended down some during the commitment window and his bonus was reduced. That same pattern happened with Dawel Joseph in the lead up to 2024. He lacks a plus tool on the offensive side, but he has fair strength projection and runs well enough to develop in center field.