How Lucas Giolito Effects The Mariners

As many people have been writing about in a few different spots and I imagine that if you follow baseball you’ve probably heard that Lucas Giolito, considered by many the top arm in the draft, sprained his UCL. Basically he didn’t tear the muscle, which would have lead to Tommy John surgery, so he doesn’t need to go under the knife but obviously it’s going to take a considerable amount of time to heal from.

You can talk about how this is going to affect him and his draft stock. But really that’s not important. He’s likely to fall out of the top-10 and there are a lot of HS arms that already could dominate the first round. What is important is how it affects the Mariners.

I had Giolito in the first 3 picks, and I’m pretty sure that everyone else did too, so now you have Zunino, Appel and Buxton that make up a pretty solid 1-3. The problem is that right now the Mariners are losing depth with the #3 pick. They are losing the ability to grab which premier talent that is available.

If a combination off Zunino and Buxton get grabbed suddenly the Mariners choices are extremely thin and as I’ve said a few different times I’m just not a big fan of Mark Appel. It’s still very early, there is a lot that can happen. But this is bad news for the Mariners and their fans.

Hopefully we’ll see someone emerge from the pack in the next few months otherwise there is a lack of elite talent. That’s a huge disappointment with the Mariners sitting with the #3 pick.