Seattle Mariners MLB Draft: Three Things to Know

The Seattle Mariners emerged from the 2024 MLB Draft with a ton of new arms.

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The Mariners wrapped up the third and final day of the draft on Monday, with Seattle walking away 14 pitchers, five position players and a two-way prospect from its 20 overall selections.

“Obviously, we’ve been pushing pitching heavily this year,” Mariners director of amateur scouting Scott Hunter said Monday. “It’s not something we said we were going to do, but it was something the draft gave us. And instead of just chasing things that maybe weren’t there, we just started piling on a bunch of power arms with things that we think we can develop.

“Age wasn’t really the thing this year because we have a lot of older guys. We just went for the pure stuff and with our (player development) department, our analysts, our scouts, our live looks, identifying things that we think can help us in the big leagues and our minor-league system. … I think we did a pretty good job of that in a draft that we thought was probably a little lighter than most years.”

Here are three things that stood out about what Hunter said at the end of the draft.

Assignments for Cijntje, Sloan TBD

Seattle used its first two picks on two college pitchers, selecting intriguing switch-pitcher Jurrangelo Cijntje in the first round and right-hander Rylan Sloan in the second.

It’s fairly common for early-round college pitching picks to get a handful of minor-league innings the summer they’re drafted. Logan Gilbert was originally set to pitch for the Everett AquaSox after being selected in the first round in 2018, but a case of mono sidelined him. George Kirby pitched in Everett the following summer when he was drafted in the first round.

However, there’s a chance Mariners fans won’t see either of them pitch in the minor leagues this summer.

“We’re not 100 percent sure yet,” Hunter said. “Because the draft is a little later this year than last year, the lead-up time for these guys will be a little bit shorter. So (assistant general manager) Andy (McKay) and I and (general manager) Justin (Hollander) and (president of baseball operations) Jerry (Dipoto), we talked the other day at lunch, and it’s going to be a small window, but there’s a chance that Jurrangelo and Ryan might get on the mound a little bit, but I doubt very much that they’ll get live activity. But that’s going to depend on the (player development department) and the pitchers.”

Hunter said the first- and second-round picks will fly to Seattle on Sunday and visit T-Mobile Park on Tuesday.

“We’re going to have some meet and greets, the signings and then obviously have them meet the guys in the clubhouse, especially (manager) Scott (Servais),” Hunter said.

A pitcher to watch

The Mariners have been successful in finding pitching prospects in the later rounds of the draft during Hunter’s tenure. Logan Evans, a 2023 12th-round pick, is climbing the prospect rankings, and 2023 11th-rounder Bradyn Garcia has made an impression early in the system. Both have already reached Double-A.

You can also go back to 2018 11th-round draft pick JP Sears, who is currently in his third MLB season pitching for the Oakland Athletics.

Hunter fittingly pointed to another 11th-round pick, LSU product Christian Little, as Seattle’s next potential raw pitcher.

Little, a 6-foot-3, 230-pound right-handed pitcher, was a promising prospect coming out of high school but never quite reached his potential during four college seasons (two at Vanderbilt, two at LSU). The 21-year-old also started college a year early.

“So he’s actually a junior that we took as a senior that throws 99 miles an hour, has a real slider,” Hunter said. “The performance may have been a little bit, on the back of his baseball card, not as good as he expected, but we met him at the combine and really feel like he’s a kid that’s going to flourish in our player development program because there’s so much untapped potential.

“When I spoke to him and his agent today and got him on the phone, he said he was really trying to become a Mariner after we met in Seattle about our pitching program, the things we explained that we thought we could help him with.”

Another intriguing draft pick from the Seattle Mariners

One of the stories of the draft was Seattle’s selection of switch-pitching Cijntje. Hunter highlighted another intriguing player in two-way prospect Grant Knipp as someone he’s most excited about from a player development perspective.

Knipp, a sixth-round pick out of Campbell University, is a catcher with pop and a reliever who can hit 99 mph. He has hit 18 homers and allowed just one run with six strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings pitched this season.

“We don’t know if he’s going to be a 30-home run guy or our end-of-the-game closer,” Hunter said. “It’s kind of fun. He’s got real talent with real tools. Maybe he can be a two-way guy who takes his chance and runs with it. And like I said yesterday, he’s going to keep hitting, but he’s also going to keep developing as a pitcher.”

More about Seattle Mariners and MLB Draft

• Investigation into what Teoscar Hernández said about hitting at T-Mobile Park
• Mariners first-rounder Jurrangelo Cijntje wants to remain switch-pitching
• ARod wants to ‘come back’ to Seattle to thank Mariners fans
• Was the Seattle Mariners’ first half a success? Brock and Salk react
• How Ryan Rowland-Smith Helped Become the First Aussie to Be Picked No. 1 in the MLB Draft

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