Mariners should revive their piggyback plan only if Kade Anderson is the headliner

Yes, it was earlier this year that the Seattle Mariners experimented with a piggyback formation with two of their starting pitchers. It only feels like ancient history, and there's a chance that what's old could become new again. With Kade Anderson up and Bryan Woo and Bryce Miller still around despite recent vague injury scares, the Mariners are back to having six usable starting pitchers.

The solution should be obvious: Anderson and Miller should be the new Miller and Luis Castillo.

The Mariners have not yet committed to reviving the piggyback, but it sure feels like Justin Hollander released a trial balloon by not ruling the idea out in front of the media (including Adam Jude of The Seattle Times) on Monday. Lest anyone forget, all the awkwardness that surrounded the first iteration barely concealed the truth that it worked pretty well. Three uses of the Miller-Castillo pairing between May 19 and 31 yielded a 1.67 ERA. Seattle's staff as a whole led MLB with a 2.45 ERA in that span.

Why Kade Anderson is the perfect guy to lead a piggyback tandem for the Mariners

If the piggyback is going to make a return, the 22-year-old Anderson makes too much sense as the headliner.

With 99 innings on his arm this year, he's inching close to the 119 innings he threw in his last season with LSU before the Mariners made him the No. 3 pick in the 2025 draft. Now Seattle's No. 1 prospect, he has maxed out at 81 pitches in his 19 total assignments at Double-A and the major league level. We saw fatigue become a factor as his upped his pitch count in his Mariners debut on Saturday.

By making Anderson the first leg of a piggyback tandem, the Mariners would be meeting his limits where they are. Another part of the deal could be that he doesn't get to face a lineup for a third time. It's a hard task for any starter, and Anderson learned that the hard way when Pete Crow-Armstrong, Alex Bregman and Michael Busch tagged him for extra-base hits in the sixth inning of his debut.

There's also the more basic benefit of Anderson being left-handed, as teams would presumably stack as many righties as they can against him. To this end, the Cubs are the exception to the rule for a season in which teams would generally rather face righties (98 wRC+) than lefties (105 wRC+).

Why Bryce Miller is the perfect guy to follow Kade Anderson if the Mariners revive the piggyback

For his part, anything that removes Miller from a starting role at this point is likely to be addition by subtraction for the Mariners.

After he got shelled by the Cubs on Sunday, Miller copped to having an issue with his lat that has been bothering him since July 24. He insists it's minor, but that date also coincides with the beginning of a six-start run in which he's been pummeled for a 7.92 ERA.

Miller's stuff has continued to rate well even during this stretch, and that counts as the good news. As for the bad news, he clearly loses effectiveness as his outings get deeper. Whereas he holds hitters to a sub-.700 OPS through pitch No. 75, hitters get to him for an .808 OPS after pitch No. 76. He averages 96.2 mph on the heater in the first inning, then declines to 94.8 mph by the fifth.

It therefore isn't a reach to think that Miller could come out throwing darts in relief of Anderson, sort of like how Castillo did when he had to relieve Miller back in May. If so, any renewed gripes he has about working in the piggyback will be worth it if the thing works as well as it did the first time.

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