Seattle Mariners: 3 prospects who could make the opening day roster

The Seattle Mariners have one of the best farm systems in the league and have plenty of players who are MLB ready. So which prospects could make the opening day roster? 

Everywhere you read will tell you that the Mariners have one of the top 10 farm systems in the MLB, and when other sites and publications come out with their rankings for 2021 I would not be surprised if almost all of them have them in their top 5. On MLB.com the Mariners also have 6 prospects in their top 100 rankings, which is tied for most in the league with Tampa Bay.

However, how many of those prospects are MLB ready? In the Mariners’ top 30 on MLB.com 12 of their prospects have expected arrival times in the majors of 2020 or 2021, with 6 of those players already making their MLB debuts.

So out of the other 6 players who are projected to come up this year, or were projected to come up last year and did not, as well as any other players who might be close to making their debut, Who could make the opening day roster?

There are plenty of players who will undoubtedly make their MLB debut next year like Jarred Kelenic and Logan Gilbert, but there are really only three in that group of guys who have not debuted yet who could make the opening day roster. MLB salary rules also make it more and more likely that guys get called up a few weeks into the season because if they remain in the minors for a set amount of time, they will not have enough “service time” in the MLB come 6 years from now and will remain under team control for another year.

So who are those three?

Cal Raleigh

Cal Raleigh is a longshot to make his MLB debut on opening day, but it could happen. There are only two players ahead of him on the Mariners roster at the catcher position as Tom Murphy figures to be the opening day starter and Luis Torrens, who the Mariners acquired last year in the Austin Nola deal, figures to be his backup.

However, Murphy is coming off of a 2020 season that saw him get 0 action as he missed the entire season due to injury, if he were to struggle in spring training or get injured again, Raleigh could slide into one of the two roster spots for a catcher.

Another reason that Raleigh has a chance to debut on opening day is that he had a great Instructional League this fall. Instructional League was huge for some Mariners prospects this fall as none of them got to play in any real games against competition other than other Mariners since last march in Spring Traning, and Raleigh took advantage of the opportunity and was one of the Mariners best hitters.

As I said, Raleigh has a chance to make the opening day roster, but my guess is that he is called up sometime mid-season if Murphy or Torrens are struggling or get injured.

Sam Delaplane

Delaplane has been the best reliever in the Mariners minor league system in the last few years. In his 3 years in the Mariners system, he has made 100 relief appearances and has a 2.29 ERA. He did not pitch in a game last season but he was a member of the Mariners player pool.

In 2019 the highest level he reached was AA where he had a 0.49 ERA in 37 innings pitched. While his minor league stats were incredible and he was a part of the Mariners summer camp, he was never added to the 40 man roster and never got an opportunity to debut.

2021 could be Delaplanes time to shine, however, with all of the turnover in the Seattle bullpen Delaplane will almost certainly debut in 2021, the question is could it be on opening day? If Delaplane has a good spring training against MLB competition he could do enough to break into the Mariners 7 man bullpen that only has a few players who are certainly going to be on the opening day roster.

My prediction is he does not make the opening day roster, but after a solid spring training and a month or two of solid pitching in AAA, once there is an injury in the bullpen Delaplane is the first reliever called up.