Rule 5 Draft departure adds to sad history of an infamous Mariners trade

The Rule 5 Draft came and went on the third day of the Winter Meetings on Wednesday, and the Seattle Mariners came away without much to show for it. They didn't select anyone during the major league portion, otherwise adding two players and losing another in the minor league portion.

It's a bit of a letdown, especially since we had our fingers crossed for the Mariners to score Athletics catcher Daniel Susac with the No. 23 pick. That was always a long shot, however, and it blew up when the Minnesota Twins took the former first-round pick with the No. 4 selection.

Rule 5 Draft departure adds to sad history of an infamous Mariners trade

As for what did happen in the Rule 5 Draft, the Mariners made two picks in the minor league phase: Carson Taylor at No. 20 and Sean Hermann at No. 38. The former is a first baseman from the Philadelphia Phillies system, while the latter is a right-hander from the New York Yankees system.

These two are both wild cards, to put it mildly. Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs had Taylor down as a 45-hit, 45-power first baseman even before he tore his right labrum and missed all but three games this season at the Triple-A level. Hermann was a 14th-round pick out of high school, and this year he had 33 walks against 45 strikeouts in 59.2 innings at Single-A.

More interesting is who the Mariners lost to the Milwaukee Brewers with the No. 23 pick in the minor league phase: Cole Phillips.

If his name doesn't ring a bell, it might be because he's never thrown a pitch in pro ball since being drafted in the second round out of high school by the Atlanta Braves in 2022. But if it does ring a bell, then congratulations on remembering the Jarred Kelenic trade.

That went down in December of 2023, and it saw the Mariners give up on both Kelenic and Evan White in a package that included Marco Gonzales for salary-dump purposes. The Mariners got back Phillips and Jackson Kowar.

Kowar was two years removed from being a top-100 prospect, while Phillips was only a year removed from being ranked as MLB Pipeline's No. 62 prospect for the 2022 draft class. Alas, both had Tommy John surgery before the 2024 season, which for Phillips was the second time in two years that he'd had the procedure.

Phillips had a 70-grade fastball as a draftee, and he's still just 22 years old. Even so, what he possesses now is something for the Brewers to find out and for the rest of us to know afterward. Maybe there's something there, but rarely has the word "maybe" done heavier lifting.

The book isn't quite closed on the Mariners-Braves trade from 2023, yet the unhappy ending is pretty well written. Neither Gonzales nor White ever suited up from the Braves, who also got 0.0 rWAR from Kelenic in two seasons before they outrighted him in October. Only Kowar is left in Seattle, and he'll likely be the first man out of the bullpen if the team adds another reliever.

Such is the story of how the Rule 5 Draft went for the Mariners: uneventful, with a side of sad.