Mariners fans are loving Kade Anderson going way too hard at spring training

Officially, Seattle Mariners fans still haven't seen Kade Anderson throw a professional pitch. The No. 3 pick from last year's draft sat out the rest of the 2025 minor league season, and he has yet to take the hill for a Cactus League game.

What Mariners fans have seen, though, is Anderson throwing pitches.

That only goes for those who have made the trek to Peoria, where Anderson's live bullpen sessions are becoming… well, maybe "the stuff of legend" is putting it too strongly, but you get the idea. Point is, the lefty drew a crowd for a live BP on Saturday and got an actual ovation when he was finished, as Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times reported.

That's a not a thing that [waves hands] just happens every day, much less for guys whose major league pitch counts are still stuck on zero. But that's where the Anderson vibes are right now, and that has everything to do with Anderson himself.

Kade Anderson is winning Mariners fans over, one practice pitch and quote at a time

Let's not beat around the bush here. Anderson has Mariners fans buzzing primarily because he's just plain good. Maybe not officially, granted, but in every possible way that screams, "Yeah, I'm good at this."

He's not out there mowing down the B squad in these live BP sessions. He fanned Randy Arozarena and Dominic Canzone as part of a sequence of three straight strikeouts on February 14. And on Saturday, he gave the same treatment to Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez.

This feeds into the other thing Mariners fans are learning about Anderson. He doesn't do the whole cliché-ridden athlete-speak thing. The dude gives good quotes.

“Personally, I'm just here to strike out batters,” Anderson said, per Daniel Kramer of MLB.com. “It doesn't matter where I'm at. So just having that mindset of going after and attacking guys is what I'm here to do.”

Yeah, that's the stuff. The stuff you wish you could grind up and use as a pre-workout. More specifically, the stuff that'll make a Mariners fan believe even harder that getting Anderson with the No. 3 pick in last year's draft was a dang gift.

The M's shouldn't have had that pick to begin with, much less a shot at Anderson when it finally came. After a dominant season for LSU, he was in the mix to go No. 1. When both the Washington Nationals and Los Angeles Angels passed on him, the brass couldn't believe it.

Though there's much we still don't know about Anderson — again, still technically zero pro pitches — we have learned a lot about him. We learned that he took Seattle's plan seriously and packed on some good weight since last July. We also know the guy never turns his competitiveness switch off.

Between all this and a stuff/control combo that has Anderson ranked as MLB Pipeline's No. 21 prospect, all the goods for a future ace are clearly there. And even now, it's also clear that Anderson already has the goods to be a fan favorite.