3 Mariners Prospects whose stock rose dramatically this season

Logan Evans

Logan Evans was one of the prospects who gained the most hype over the offseason and throughout spring training. He was dominating on the backfields of the Mariners complex in Peoria and was drawing the attention of prospect gurus around the industry. This came after being a 12th-round draft pick by the Mariners last season, similar to Brandyn Garcia, and he has dominated this year as well.

Just like Garcia, Evans got his feet wet in 15 innings last year after being drafted and gave up just 1 run and struck out 15 hitters. Then the Mariners made the bold decision to send the then 22 year old straight to Double-A at the start of the season. He came out on fire and through his first ten games had an ERA of 1.23 in 51.1 innings and had 47 strikeouts.

After that dominant start, the Mariners tried an experiment where they used him out of the bullpen in hopes of transitioning him to the big leagues as a reliever just like they did with Edwin Diaz who was a starter in Double-A, moved to the bullpen, and was called up to the big leagues and became one of the best closers in baseball. Unfortunately, it did not work out too well for Evans and the organization decided to move him back to the rotation.

His prospect hype dipped a little bit after the bullpen experiment didn't work out, but overall he has had a great season in Arkansas. On the year he has pitched 107 innings and had a 3.20 ERA and 98 strikeouts. His early season numbers carried his overall performance because in the last two months he has not been as dominant. In starts where he went at least three innings Evans had a 3.37 ERA, 33 walks, and 80 strikeouts in 86 innings pitched.

On the whole, it has been a great season for Evans and he has put himself in a spot where he knows now what it takes to pitch well for an extended period of time and he will hopefully be able to make the adjustments necessary to be ready for a big league call up. A promotion to the majors should not be too far away from Evans since he was put in the bullpen with the idea of bringing him up earlier this year.

These three starting pitching prospects all had huge breakout seasons for the Mariners this season. They all put themselves in great positions going forward to either help the club win games in the next few years or to be used as trade ammunition to help President of Baseball Operations Jerry Dipoto to go get the help the big league roster needs to compete next year.