New MLB Pipeline Top 100 dings Mariners’ draft bragging rights with Kade Anderson

The Mariners' top pick from last year's draft is the latest in a long line of successful amateur selections. Across 34 innings in Double-A, he has a 1.85 ERA with a 2.01 FIP and a 41.1% strikeout rate, even after having his first shaky start of his professional career. His recent performance is enough to wonder whether it's time to call him up or possibly extend him to a long-term contract, actions the organization has already taken with their top prospect Colt Emerson.

As a reward for his performances thus far, he received a slight bump in MLB Pipeline's updated list of prospects, landing at No. 7 overall. It places him in elite company, landing just one spot before the aforementioned Emerson and above marquee names like Max Clark and Sebastian Walcott. However, according to the list, the Mariners actually got the second-best arm talent in the 2025 draft.

MLB Pipeline has ranked Seth Hernandez as the No. 3 prospect, four spots above Kade Anderson

Seth Hernandez was taken by the Pittsburgh Pirates just three spots after Anderson but was selected straight out of Corona High School, foregoing a commitment to play baseball at Vanderbilt. The right-handed pitcher was a highly-touted high school prospect and has exceptional stuff for a 19-year-old.

"While he touched triple digits at the Area Code Games, he typically sits in the mid-90s, touching 97-98 mph. His best secondary offering is his changeup, and it's plus right now, thrown with a lot of confidence and missing bats with it thanks to its good action and how it plays off of his fastball plane well. His curve, a true 12-to-6 spike curveball, has the chance to be plus with hard, tight and late action to it, sometimes registering RPMs in the 3,000 range."

MLB scouts on Seth Hernandez

He started the year with Single-A Bradenton before recently being promoted to High-A Greensboro. Across 33 minor league innings so far, he has a 0.82 ERA with a 2.21 FIP and a 46.7% strikeout rate. Overall, his numbers are similar to Anderson's albeit against lower competition.

So if their numbers are the same but Kade is closer to the majors, then why is he ranked lower than Hernandez?

It's important to remember that value proposition of prospects lies in what they can do in the future, not necessarily what they're accomplishing right now. Thus, rankings tend to bias towards younger players with lots of upside and potential over older, more proven players that are more of a baked cake. To illustrate this, all of the top four MLB Pipeline prospects are 19 years old except for Eli Willits, who is 18.

While Anderson and Hernandez are posting similar numbers, the latter is two years younger and the assumption seems to be that by the time that he's 21 years old, he'll be even better than where Anderson is at right now. It's a lofty bar and plenty of top prospects don't pan out, but that's the result of such a speculative system of player evaluation.

Even in a game as surgically precise as baseball, the difference between a No. 3 and a No. 7 prospect is almost imperceptible. For the Mariners, these rankings are far less important than the role that their players will fill in the organization. While Seth Hernandez will need a little more time before he's ready to lend a hand at the highest level, Kade Anderson is ready for a bigger challenge and will be prepared to help Seattle win whenever they deem it necessary.

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