MLB releases top 100 2021 draft prospects and what it means for Mariners

MLB.com has produced its list of top 100 draft prospects for 2021 and the Seattle Mariners pick 12th. The MLB list is full of the kind of players you would expect: Pitchers, corner infielders, outfielders, and the occasional middle infielder and catcher. Seattle has a loaded farm system and due to that, they can be a little more choosy in which player Seattle takes.Sure, the club needs a lot still. But, general manager Jerry Dipoto and Mariners fans are thinking and hoping that the loaded Mariners farm system is going to start producing players this coming season or next and Seattle will start winning the AL West and maybe more.

Seattle Mariners needs

Among the top-10 on MLB’s top-100 are four righthanded pitchers and three shortstops. No team can have too much good pitching so the Mariners might take a pitcher with the 12th pick. Shortstop is important too, but the current 12th-rated prospect is high school third baseman Brady House from Winder-Barrow High School in Winder, Georgia. The Mariners will likely need a third baseman by the time House would be ready for the big leagues so House might actually make the most sense of the MLB’s top-12.

Baseball America projects the Mariners 2024 lineup to have Noelvi Marte at third base. But Marte has played a lot of shortstop and not third base so far and won’t turn 20 years old until October. Marte might be a great third baseman one day or maybe he stays at short. My point is. if House has a good senior year in high school he might be a wise choice for Seattle.

However, Jerry Dipoto has exclusively gone with college players in the first round since he took over at GM. That does not mean that he will 100% go with a college player again as he has drafted high school players in later rounds and this year he could change up his system with less college scouting due to the pandemic.

MLB.com’s list is topped by Kumar Rocker, a pitcher from Vanderbilt, but Seattle isn’t going to get him as Rocker is ridiculously talented and the Mariners were too good in 2020 to have the top pick. However, among the top-10 of MLB.com’s prospects, the Mariners might see pitchers Ty Madden of the University of Texas or high school pitcher Andrew Painter fall to them. They could also go with Dipoto’s style of drafting college players and see if third baseman Alex Binellas from Louisville falls to them, or the previously mentioned Ty Madden from Texas.

These of course are early rankings and we will have to wait and see how the college baseball season plays out. Maybe as the spring goes along someone perfect will rise or fall into the 12-15th ranked range that would be perfect for the Mariners and Dipoto’s style of drafting.