Seattle Mariners: Minor League Report, August 26

Recapping a huge weekend for Seattle Mariners prospects.

Jerry Dipoto’s philosophy and ultimate plan with the Mariners’ current rebuild is to sustain success throughout his organization. Over the past couple of weeks, that has been on full display, with a pair of their top names getting promotions to the Major League club while supplementing their open spots with more high-level talent.

And that high-level talent, in particular, has shone through in reaching new heights within Seattle’s farm ranks. Julio Rodriguez has rightfully taken most of the headlines since his recent promotion to High-A Modesto, slashing .545/.571/.788 with 18 hits, 10 RBIs, and a homer over his first week and change in the Cal League.

Rodriguez’s dominance likely means he won’t be in Modesto for too long, though the season is about to end. However, he’s legitimately pushing the envelope on potentially starting the 2020 season in Double-A Arkansas, or at least a very early promotion there, which didn’t feel at all possible a week ago. But he looks far too advanced for the league he’s in.

He will, however, be subjected to some tougher competition soon in the Arizona Fall League alongside former West Virginia teammate Jarred Kelenic. Like Rodriguez, Kelenic has adjusted well to his new level since being promoted to Arkansas a couple weeks ago. It was a struggle at first, but Kelenic has seemingly figured things out, getting on base in his last nine games, including a two-dinger day on Friday night.

The night before, Ian McKinney made his first start for Arkansas following the MLB promotion of Justus Sheffield. It wasn’t a pretty outing for McKinney, but not an entirely ugly one either. McKinney had some command/control issues early on, distributing four walks over four innings of work, though he only allowed one run and struck out five.

Staying on the pitching front, two under-the-radar names had a pair of beautiful outings on Sunday night. In Modesto, Austin Hutchison hurled five scoreless innings, striking out nine along the way to a win. Meanwhile, Darren McCaughan got things back on track after a brutal start to his Triple-A career, allowing just two hits and no runs with six strikeouts in six innings of work to a strong Las Vegas lineup, though the Rainiers eventually fell to the Aviators.

One name that I wanted to mention before wrapping this up is Jake Scheiner, whom the Mariners acquired from Philadelphia as a ‘throw-in’ to offload Jay Bruce‘s contract. Scheiner didn’t make our top 40 prospect re-rank, but has been a strong contributor for Modesto. Including a home run in last night’s 7-0 pounding of Visalia, the 24-year-old Scheiner is now up to .280/.341/.646 through his last 20 games, putting up 23 hits, 25 RBIs, and nine home runs in that time.

Another third base prospect who’s having himself a great weekend is Joe Rizzo, who kicked things off with a 5-for-5 day on Saturday then bombed his 10th home run of the season on Sunday night. Rizzo still has to build out more power in his game, but he’s at least made great strides defensively in his second full year with Modesto.