Bil522 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 27, 2025 2:58 pm
6 Mariners make The Athletic's Keith Law's Top 100. All writing done by Keith Law:
5.Emerson
24.Celesten
45.Young
66. Laz
79. Ford
81. Arroyo
5. Colt Emerson SS
2024 Ranking: 37
If Emerson had stayed healthy all year, he would have been close to the very top of this list, just based on how good he looked and how well he performed when he was able to take the field. The 22nd pick in 2023, Emerson went to Low A to start last year as an 18-year-old — his birthday is in late July — and hit .293/.440/.427 in 40 games, walking more than he struck out. The Mariners bumped him up to High A in early August, and he hit .225/.331/.317 in 29 games there — but still made plenty of contact — and then hit .370/.436/.537 as one of the youngest players in the Arizona Fall League. The bad news is that he played a total of 83 games between the regular season and the AFL, hitting the IL in April with an oblique strain, breaking a bone in his foot by fouling a ball off it in mid-May, and then leaving Arizona in early November after straining a hamstring. He’s played about 80 percent of his pro innings at shortstop and has shown the range and instincts to stay there, even though he’s just an average runner; if his propensity to get hurt continues as he matures, he may be better served moving to third or second, but he's so much more valuable at short that he’ll probably stay there at least through the high minors. He has all of the ingredients to be a hitter for a high average and OBP, with a short path to the ball, excellent bat speed and a strong approach for his age. He might only lack the power to get to the upper echelons of MLB position players, but he also has an extra year (so to speak) to develop that when compared to other elite shortstop prospects.
Felnin Celesten
SS
Seattle Mariners
Age:
19
Ht:
6-1
Wt:
175
Bats:
S
Throws:
R
2024 Ranking: Unranked
Celesten might be a superstar, if he can stay on the field and make the most of his prodigious physical abilities. Signed in January 2023 for a $4.2 million bonus, Celesten missed all of the 2023 complex season with a hamstring strain, then went to the Arizona Complex League (skipping the DSL) to start 2024 and hit .352/.431/.568, which put him in the top 10 in the league in average and slugging among all players with at least 100 PA. He missed a month with wrist pain, returned for one game in late July, and then shut it down, eventually undergoing surgery to repair a broken hamate bone. The team said it was an old injury, so he did all that at the plate while playing through an injury that typically saps a ton of power from a hitter. He’s a true switch-hitter with plus speed, an above-average to plus arm, and good actions at shortstop, lagging behind in some of the less tangible aspects like his internal clock and getting better reads off the bat. If he has the work ethic to match his tools, he’s going to be a superstar.
Cole Young
SS
Seattle Mariners
Age:
21
Ht:
5-10
Wt:
180
Bats:
L
Throws:
R
2024 Ranking: 46
Young had another very solid year at the plate while being young for his level, hitting .271/.369/.390 as a 20-year-old in Double A, all comfortably above the averages for the Texas League (.240/.327/.374), even though he was the fourth-youngest regular at the level. He’s always been an advanced hitter for his age with exceptional feel for contact; data from Synergy Sports show him with a whiff rate of just 19 percent last year, and nothing over 22 percent on any of the big four pitch types. His swing is handsy and doesn’t generate much power, although he does make hard enough contact to keep his average up, and gets the ball in the air enough to maybe see him as a 40-doubles, 10-homer guy in the majors. He can play shortstop but probably will end up superseded by a plus defender, while he’s played extremely well at second and might be a plus defender himself at that spot. He’s a no-doubt big leaguer, with the floor of a very good platoon infielder who can play multiple spots but maybe sits against good lefties, and a strong probability that he’s at least a solid-average regular at one of the two middle infield positions.
Lazaro Montes
OF
Seattle Mariners
Age:
20
Ht:
6-3
Wt:
210
Bats:
L
Throws:
R
2024 Ranking: Unranked
Montes is a huge, lumbering prospect from Cuba who hits the ball exceptionally hard, so the natural comparison is to a young Yordan Alvarez, who was older than Montes when he first played in full-season ball but reached the majors days before his 22nd birthday. Montes is extremely strong and has produced exit velocities well north of 110 mph, with clear 40 homer upside as long as he hits enough to get to it. He’s not as natural of a hitter as Alvarez, although the Mariners worked with him on pitch selection and a two-strike approach last year and he did see better swing decisions overall. He raked in Low A as a 19-year-old, hitting .309/.411/.527 with just a 19.1 percent strikeout rate, then moved up to High A around the midpoint and hit .260/.378/.427 there with a 29.6 percent strikeout rate, still making hard contact but a lot more whiffs on stuff in the zone. He’s going to end up at first base, as he’s already really big for an outfield corner and doesn’t have much range, but there’s a pretty good chance he hits for enough power and takes enough walks to be an above-average regular there. I don’t think Montes is really the next Yordan; he doesn’t have the same kind of hit tool, but he also doesn’t have Yordan’s knees, which both required surgery when he was 23 and made him even less mobile than he was before.
Harry Ford
C
Seattle Mariners
Age:
22
Ht:
5-10
Wt:
200
Bats:
R
Throws:
R
2024 Ranking: 61
Ford had a mixed year in 2024, moving up to Double A and continuing to get on base, albeit with slightly worse results across the board at the plate, while his defense behind the plate was worse and there’s more chance now that he ends up at DH than there was a year ago. He still has very strong plate discipline, chasing pitches out of the zone just 19 percent of the time, about one-third of those were pitches just one ball’s width outside of the zone. He has shown he can lay off many right-handers’ sliders down and away. He has more raw power than his .367 slugging percentage would imply, but last year he just didn’t square the ball up anywhere near as consistently has he had before, and his tendency to pop up pitches a little above the belt got worse. He’s a plus runner and great athlete who moves well behind the dish, but he’s a 45 receiver right now and his plus arm hasn’t translated into even average caught-stealing rates. The Mariners did try him a few games in left field this year, but the early returns weren’t promising. He’s 21, knows the strike zone, has untapped power, and is very athletic, all reasons to still believe there’s upside here, but Ford’s 2024 season was kind of a disappointment, and if he doesn’t stay behind the plate I’m not sure the bat will profile as a regular at any other spot.
Michael Arroyo
2B
Seattle Mariners
Age:
20
Ht:
5-8
Wt:
160
Bats:
R
Throws:
R
2024 Ranking: Unranked
Arroyo needed to get to more power, and he did in 2024, repeating Low A and boosting his slugging percentage by 127 points, then heading up to High A and hitting .290/.397/.519 — all before his 20th birthday. He signed in January 2022 with the reputation of being an advanced hitter, and that’s been true, as he has a great approach that has him aggressive within the strike zone without expanding outside of it too often. He’s short with a stockier build, with really no chance to stay at shortstop, so there was more pressure on him to hit the ball harder, and he did so, with big improvements in his batted-ball data and his power output. He hit five homers total in 61 games in 2023, then hit 23 in 120 games last year. He barrels the ball very consistently and puts it in the air over 60 percent of the time. In the field, he has a plus arm and good enough hands to stay on the dirt somewhere, playing almost all of his reps at second base last year but with third base also a possibility as long as he doesn’t get much bigger from here. We’ve seen plenty of undersized infielders become All-Stars in recent years because they could square the ball up for frequent hard contact, including José Ramírez and Alex Bregman. That’s Arroyo’s absolute best-case scenario, of course, but as long as he stays on the dirt he should be at least an everyday player.
