Mariners' First Round pick leads Modesto Nuts to back-to-back Championships

The Seattle Mariners Single-A affiliate Modesto Nuts took home their second consecutive California League championship on Wednesday, September 18. The Nuts earned a playoff spot after dominating the California League in the first half of the season when a full group of top prospects started the year on the team. After promotions and the trade deadline, there were fewer top prospects on the Nuts roster, but the team was still headlined by a 2024 first-round pick.

Tai Peete was the 30th pick in last year's draft by the Mariners out of high school and he played the second most games of any player on the Nuts last year and played by far the most games out of the Mariners top prospects at 115. Some of the other top prospects who helped propel Modesto to a playoff spot included Colt Emerson, Lazaro Montes, Michael Arroyo, Jonny Farmelo, and Aidan Smith. Emerson, Montes, and Arroyo earned promotions to Everett, Farmelo tore his ACL which ended his season, and Smith was traded to Tampa Bay in the Randy Arozarena deal.

The trio of hitters that played their way to a promotion to High-A Everett are all top 12 prospects in the Mariners farm system according to MLB Pipeline. Emerson is their top-ranked Mariners prospect and they have Montes at third. They also have Peete listed as the club's 11th-best prospect, right ahead of Arroyo.

In 2024 Peete played most of the season at 18 years old before his birthday in August. Since he is so young and was drafted as more of a long-term development prospect and less of a polished youngster like Cole Young, it was expected that he would not have a monster season or be pushing to earn a midseason promotion. While that was true, he did not have a bad season at all, he had a very solid season.

In 115 games Peete got over 500 plate appearances and put up a .269/.343/.408 slash line. He hit seven home runs, 25 doubles, and swiped an impressive 45 bases, and was only caught five times. However, the biggest issue was his strikeout rate. He struck out 162 times which equated to about a 30% strikeout rate. That is an issue that Peete will have to improve as he moves up the minor league ladder, but overall it was a positive season for Peete.

On the pitching side, the Nuts saw the rise of right-handed pitcher Brody Hopkins. He went from a sixth-round pick in last year's draft to a rising pitching prospect in the first half of the season. Ultimately he ended up being the other key piece of the Arozarena trade, but he had a strong first half in Modesto. Modesto also had two of the Mariners prep pitchers from the 2022 draft have their best years yet. Ashton Izzi and Tyler Gough both had over 20 starts and put themselves in a position to improve their prospect stock significantly next year.

Looking ahead to 2025 the Modesto Nuts will likely have one of the Mariners' most expensive draft picks from this year's draft in Ryan Sloan who is a right-handed pitcher the club drafted out of high school and paid him over slot value to come to Seattle. We also should see the full-season debut of Felnin Celesten who unfortunately had a wrist injury that cut his first season in the United States short. The Nuts might also see the return of Jonny Farmelo in coming back from his ACL surgery.