5 Mariners grace top 100 of ESPN Insiders updated prospect list

The Mariners farm system seems to just keep getting better and better. Even with the shallow depth that they have with their pitching prospects, their plethora of hitters has led to many thinking that this is a top 3-5 system, and that their hitting rivals that of any team in baseball, even up there with the Orioles and their impressive group of youngsters.

ESPN, like so many other major baseball outlets, keeps a prospect list and updates it throughout the year. They came out with an updated Top 100, which is a good way to distract yourself from the opener in Detroit that we are 100% never going to mention as we've tried to scrub it from our memories.

What's nice is that ESPN doesn't just break them down by their FV-Tier (essentially how many WAR they project them to have) but they also included a link to the preseason rankings so that you can compare how much a prospect has risen or fallen. The midseason update has a couple of new additions (to ESPN, at least), so let's get into their rankings and see which Mariners made the list. For reference sake, I'm including where they were on the preseason ranking as well.

ESPN has 5 Mariners in the top 100, and one sniffing the top ten

#11: SS - Colt Emerson - Preseason #25
#39: SS - Cole Young - Preseason #38
#40: OF - Jonny Farmelo - Preseason (Unranked)
#53: C - Harry Ford - Preseason #52
#69: SS - Felnin Celesten - Preseason (Unranked)

Farmelo and Celesten are the new additions, and really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Celesten, when he can actually stay healthy due to the wrist injury that has been plaguing him, continues to show why he was such a coveted International signing by the Mariners. He's hitting .352/.431/.568 in Rookie Ball as an 18-year-old, but has only played one game since June 20th.

Farmelo, like Celesten, isn't playing right now because of injury. He blew out his knee, ruining what was otherwise a very impressive debut season in Modesto for Farmelo that saw him tally 18 steals with a .264/.398/.421 slash line with 26 walks to 52 strikeouts across 46 games.

Harry Ford and Cole Young essentially remain unchanged in the rankings, each moving a single spot. Young is doing well for a 20-year-old in the notoriously hard to hit at AA league that the Arkansas Travelers play in. With 19 steals and 8 homers, he's hitting .259/.354/.390, with only 67 strikeouts across 429 plate appearances.

Ford is Young's teammate in Arkansas and has been having a very up-and-down season. He started slow, hitting .109 in his first 12 games. He then turned it on, and would hit .323/.444/.540 across the next 32 games. Since then, he is hitting only .213/.328/.256 over his last 46 games without a single homer. He's showing great speed with 27 steals, and it's worth pondering if the Mariners move him off the position to save those legs and get his athleticism in the lineup more often.

Lastly, we have the Mariners current top prospect in Colt Emerson. Only 18, he's gone from Rookie to A to High-A this season, and currently is playing in Everett after the recent promotion. The eye is standing out to many scouts, as he has a 40BB/31K ratio this year through a total of 226 AB's. Adding in his discipline to his ability to hit for doubles has the prospect world abuzz, with the hope being the eye continues to improve and the power grows as he gets a bit older.

It's nice to see ESPN giving the Mariners some credit, even if it is less than some other sites. Pipeline has the Mariners with 6 prospects in the top 100, and Baseball America had them with 8 if memory serves correct. Lazaro Montes, Michael Arroyo, Logan Evans, Tai Peete, and Tyler Locklear all show up on lists, and that's without talking about their most recent draft class with Jurrangelo Cijntje and Ryan Sloan.

The Mariners are in a good place in the prospect world right now. Even though the Major League team has their struggles as the plate (and that's putting it nicely), help doesn't seem too far away, and the continued growth and success of some of these players means that the solution to the Mariners hitting woes could come from not a trade or signing, but from a promotion within.