The Athletic's prospect rankings confirm Mariners fans' feelings on untouchables

'Tis the season for various publications to reveal their rankings for the top prospects in baseball for the 2026 season. While the level of praise isn't quite universal, these reveals have unsurprisingly given Seattle Mariners fans much to cheer for.

Baseball America has only four Mariners prospects in its top 100, but all four fall within the top 60. ESPN does them one better with five Mariners in its top 100, and MLB Pipeline features seven Seattle prospects in its top 100, the most of any team.

Yet as easy as it is to get caught up in the numbers, what matters is what is actually said about any given prospect. And if you're a Mariners fan who feels strongly about Colt Emerson and Ryan Sloan, here's a wakeup call: even you might be underrating them.

Keith Law's prospect rankings make Colt Emerson and Ryan Sloan sound untouchable

Keith Law of The Athletic also dropped a top 100 in the last few days, and it's worth reading simply because Law tends to march to his own beat with these things. In this case, even Emerson and Sloan stans might be surprised by how much praise Law heaps on them.

He has Emerson ranked as the No. 4 prospect in baseball, remarking that the 20-year-old shortstop has superstar potential with or without 20-plus home runs as his power ceiling.

Sloan, meanwhile, ranks ahead of even Kade Anderson as Law's No. 21 overall prospect. It's the highest that any of the aforementioned publications have the right-hander, and the line that sells it is this: "If I have any concerns about Sloan, it’s just that he is so good, so soon."

This feels like an it's-about-time-somebody-said-it take. Even the Mariners landing Sloan in the second round of the 2024 draft felt too good to be true, and every new report since then has made him sound better and better.

Reports like these are sure to reinforce what already seems to be a growing consensus among Mariners fans: whatever the team does going forward, it simply can't trade either Emerson or Sloan.

This has never felt especially likely, of course. Indeed, the only way you really have to entertain Emerson or Sloan going anywhere is if the return is, say, Tarik Skubal or Ketel Marte. And even if both are ostensibly still on the table with spring training getting near, those ships have likely sailed for Seattle.

As for Brendan Donovan, well, we must admit that we went there with Sloan back in December. Yet even that was meant as a Godfather offer the St. Louis Cardinals couldn't refuse, and it increasingly feels like nothing is good enough for them to actually pull the trigger on a trade.

Meanwhile, the Mariners already have plans to give Emerson a shot at the third base job this spring. Sloan is further away after pitching at Single-A and High-A in 2025, yet there could be a non-zero chance of him making it to Seattle in 2026. Health permitting, he's that good.

If either of them leaves the Mariners organization any time soon, it had better be for the sake of landing a proper superstar. Because with a little patience, holding onto both could mean having two superstars in the long run.