hope we see this in seattle soon

[stanjavier]

https://prospectinsider.com/jarred-kele ... s-newsome/

young guns taring it up...

[rockycola]

The next 2 - 3 years gonna see a lot of changes on the Mariners.

There will be a whole lotta new sheriffs, kings, sultans, youth, power arms and it is going to be a fun ride.

If we can get through a season like this with any sanity left.

[Petert]

It’s about time we got something excellent back in a trade with a NY team. It’s been a long time since Buhner, and too many deals with those shysters have gone the wrong way.

[D-train]

The Athletic also out with a piece on our prospects today.

Welcome​ to​ our​ first​ edition​ of Down on the​ Farm, a periodic installment​ that will review​ the progress​ of​ Seattle’s​ promising​ minor​​ leaguers. One month into the season, many of the top farmhands are off to a strong start. Erik Swanson, Justus Sheffield and Braden Bishop have all made their Mariner debuts, and most of the other offseason imports have performed well.

Below, we’ll cover three of those new players, highlight what looks like a breakout in Modesto and more. (Editor’s note: Statistics are updated through May 1.)

Low-A West Virginia
Hitter: Jarred Kelenic

The Mets’ first-round pick last summer, Kelenic was seen as a five-tool player who was surprisingly advanced for a cold-weather prep bat. Seattle aggressively pushed him to the Sally League and, after only collecting two hits in his first week, he’s been one of the stars of this minor-league season ever since. The lefty is batting .344/.438/.622 this season, with five homers, 24 strikeouts and 14 walks in 100 plate appearances.

If anything, the numbers undersell the performance here. A disproportionate number of those whiffs came in that brief slump to start the year, and pitchers are already starting to work around him. There aren’t many 19-year-olds in Low-A to begin with, much less ones getting the star treatment from arms three years his senior.

He’s got a beautifully efficient swing: he coils as part of his load, gets the bat to the ball with no wasted movement and has a knack for finding the barrel. He’s still a five-tool talent — there’s just a chance those tools are better than we all thought six months ago.

Pitcher: Damon Casetta-Stubbs

Casetta-Stubbs was Seattle’s 11th-round pick in the 2018 draft. The Chehalis product’s talent outpaced his draft position though, and he actually landed on my top-10 list of Seattle prospects last July. The Mariners gave him a tough assignment this spring, and he’s responded well, spinning gems in each of his first two starts in West Virginia.

In three outings, Casetta-Stubbs has struck out 10 and walked only three over 12 innings. He hasn’t hit the top end of his velocity range — he was up to 97 as an amateur — but he’s sitting comfortably in the low-90s and touching 93 with good run on the ball.

There’s plenty to iron out. His delivery is a bit stiff. He’ll likely need to tame the spinal tilt and pronounced head snap in his motion to improve his command. It’s not clear whether his slider will be nasty enough to be a big bat-misser, and he doesn’t have a reliable third pitch yet. Those things can be refined with time. For now, the ingredients look plenty good.

High-A Modesto
Hitter: Luis Liberato

It’s odd to see a Cal League team hitting .230 with less than a homer per game, but Modesto is turning the trick. As such, it’s understandably a bit difficult to pick a standout player. Cal Raleigh, the org’s third pick in last year’s draft, has hit four home runs and flashed his strong arm behind the plate, but he’s off to a slow start otherwise. The rest of the roster is either old or repeating the level. Among that crew, the guy to watch has been Liberato.

The 23-year-old Dominican has long had promising tools, but never consistently turned them into reliable production. Given his age, friendly hitting environment and experience — he’s played nearly 200 games at High-A now — Liberato’s numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt. Still, his seven dingers are halfway to a career high, and he’s not selling out for power to get there. It’s far too early to get bullish here, and we’ll need to see him continue to hit against better arms before we get excited. If he keeps this up though, he’ll be in Double-A soon enough.

Pitcher: Ljay Newsome

It’s early, but this guy may be the breakout player in the system this year. Coming into 2019, Newsome was barely a prospect, a 22-year-old command-and-control righty with a high-80s fastball and no clear route to the big leagues. But, after spending the winter developing his velocity, Newsome came back with several extra ticks on his fastball. Suddenly he’s a command-and-control righty sitting 91-93 and touching higher, and that’s a whole different kettle of fish. The results speak for themselves: Across six starts, he’s whiffed 54 hitters while walking only four in 36 innings.

Now that he’s throwing hard, Newsome’s arsenal is actually pretty intriguing, particularly given his command and feel to pitch. He’s adept at running his fastball from off the plate onto the gloveside corner, and can also elevate with his four-seamer to chase a whiff. His curve is a sharp 12-6 breaker with good depth, though with perhaps a bit less movement than you’d like. His change can break a bit early on him, but has good sinking action and flashes above-average.

I don’t want to make him sound like a budding ace: his pitch mix features a few above-average offerings, but he doesn’t yet have a surefire bat-misser. His eye-popping numbers reflect his growth as a pitcher, but also overmatched competition. We’ll learn more about how his stuff plays when he reaches Double-A; given how he’s started the year, that can’t be too far from now.

Double-A Arkansas
Hitter: Evan White

Most of this report touches on guys who have charged strong out of the gate. The counterweight here is White, who can blame a hip flexor injury for waylaying his start to 2019. White, you may recall, is an athletic first baseman long renowned for his speed, defense and ability to hit the ball hard. A swing path adjustment last summer helped him tap into previously latent pop down the stretch. Whether he could continue to hit for power was one of the biggest things to watch down on the farm this season.

So far, there’s little to report. He’s hitting .214/.292/.286 with three doubles and no homers in 11 games. Obviously, it’s far too early to worry: It’s just a handful of games, he missed two weeks with an injury, and he’s making the difficult leap from High-A to Double-A. These things happen in baseball; we’ll check in again later this year.

Pitcher: Justin Dunn

Dunn was a bit of a late bloomer as a college prospect, and perhaps not surprisingly, it’s been a relatively slow path through the minors for the former first-rounder. He’s cleaning through hitters in Double-A this season — he’s got 27 strikeouts in 18 innings and hasn’t allowed a homer yet — and while he’s been a bit wild, his stuff has looked very good. He’s reportedly touched 97 and is sitting in the low-mid 90s with two secondaries that flash plus. As with Kelenic, so far, so good for the two big imports from the Edwin Díaz/Robinson Canó trade.

Triple-A Tacoma
Hitter: Shed Long

As speculated in the spring, it appears the Mariners are grooming Long for utility work. He’s started at least five times at third and left in addition to his normal home at second base. At the plate, it’s been mostly business as usual. Long has a decent eye and his solid but unspectacular walk rate made it through the connecting flight to Tacoma. He hasn’t hit for a ton of power yet, but one of his two homers was an absolute bomb.

Embedded video

Tacoma Rainiers
✔
@RainiersLand
Shed Long with a Looooooong Game-Winner. Bring your brooms tomorrow, Tacoma because we're going for the sweep. 🧹

RECAP: https://www.milb.com/tacoma/news/rainie ... -306153336 …#ThisIsRCity


Provided that the extra base hits come a little more regularly as the weather warms, he should see time in Seattle later this season.

Pitcher: Anthony Misiewicz

The Rainiers are collectively running an ERA just north of 7. There are only three pitchers on the team who have thrown 10 innings with an ERA under four. One of them is 29; another is a 26-year-old with no big-league experience. The third is Justus Sheffield (good!) who has managed to keep runs off the board despite walking 14 hitters in 18 frames (less good!).

With that in mind, let’s punt and talk about the southpaw fresh up from Double-A. Misiewicz has steadily climbed Seattle’s minor-league ladder since being drafted out of Michigan State in 2015, with a brief pit stop in Tampa Bay’s system. He’s a lefty with fringy velocity but a pretty good curveball and a decent track record of throwing strikes. He’s fanning a batter per inning with only five walks across 28 innings so far this season. His changeup is a fader that looks more like a barrel misser than a swing-and-miss offering; how it plays will determine whether he’s an up-and-down extra arm or a guy with a bit more major-league utility.

[Ziskmagic]

Thanks for posting the article. Great to see Newsome, Raleigh, and especially Casetta-Stubbs' progress on the pitching side, and for Kelenic to be Kelenic. It' always feels good to gush over prospects, and especially now when the major league team is getting beaten silly. Tacoma 2020 is shaping up to be f'ing incredible.

I do wonder how long the M's can continue their current performance before JD has to get rid of SS? Please please please? I'm guessing t's more likely the M's turn it around once were playing against garbage again - the M's have always been masters in the art of Disappointment...even when it comes to tanking.

Enjoy your weekends, everyone!