Sodo Mojo’s Top 40 Seattle Mariners Prospects: 10-6

The Cactus League season is underway and the Mariners young players are playing quite well. But we continue to move along, unveiling our Top 40 Mariners prospects 5 at a time.

Today, we continue our official countdown, revealing the next 5 prospects to crack our Top 40 list. As we move up the list, more or more names will be familiar to Mariners fans. And now, we are officially inside the Top 10 with a large number of these names figuring to get to Seattle in 2020.

But before we do, let’s review our process. First, the rankers consisted of 4 staff writers. All 4 writers produced a list of their top prospects. The average rank of each player is the spot they landed on our list. In this case, the lower the number, the higher the rank.

Our rankers were not given any criteria for their list. Different eyes see different things and unique minds value things differently than others. There are no cookie cutters for prospect scouting and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Also, take these ranks with a grain of salt. We do not get to see many of these players often and are relying on graining video, scouting reports, and statistics to cover our bases. If you want top-end prospect ranks, I suggest Keith Law of ESPN as well as Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel. So, let’s get started.

Isaiah Campbell is the 2019 third-round selection whose large college workload stopped him from making his pro debut in 2019. Campbell won’t have any such restrictions this year and will likely head off to West Virginia to start his season.

Campbell has a good arsenal including a 91-95 MPH that can hit 98 MPH in short stints. He has a 60-grade slider that shows up to 70-grade on occasion. The fastball/slider combination alone makes him a high-leverage reliever and possible closer in the future. This high floor will get lazy scouts to call him reliever right now, but there is absolutely no reason to move him out of the rotation right now.

Campbell has two more pitches, including a solid-average split-changeup that could settle into another above-average offering for Campbell. The curveball is fringe-average at best, but has a shot to get to average, which could give Campbell 4-pitches that are average or better, including a plus slider.

Campbell throws strikes and has above-average control. But his command hovers closer to 50-grade than 55-grade, but Campbell is a good athlete with relatively clean mechanics, so both could improve a half-grade or more.

Campbell has a higher-floor than most, but also has a chance to be a #2 starter. But the path to get there is more difficult than other arms on this list, which is why he comes in at 10. With a solid pro debut, Campbell could climb into the Top 5 in our initial 2021 ranks.