The secret weapon that could guarantee Ryan Sloan's Mariners stardom

This is not the most exciting time of year for the average baseball fan, but it actually is for a very specific type of fan. If you're super into prospect intel dumps, right now is basically your Super Bowl — and particularly if you swear allegiance to the Seattle Mariners.

Hype for the Mariners farm system has been coming on seemingly a daily basis of late, and now things are starting to get into the nitty-gritty. MLB Pipeline just dropped its rankings for the top 10 right-handed pitching prospects in the game, and Ryan Sloan checks in at No. 6.

That's encouraging on its own, and even better is that we might have a proper classification for one of Sloan's primary pitches.

Ryan Sloan's kick-change could guarantee his Mariners stardom

It's a "blink and you'll miss it" reveal, but MLB Pipeline's latest report on Sloan specifically refers to his changeup as a kick-changeup. This would appear to be new information, as that pitch had previously been referred to as a regular changep by MLB Pipeline and as a splitter by Brendan Gawlowski of FanGraphs.

For anyone who's totally lost, a kick-change is a changeup for pitchers who supinate when they throw. For anyone else who's still totally lost, that means pitchers who throw with their knuckles on the outside of the ball. By contrast, pronators throw with their knuckles on the inside of the ball.

For right-handers who tend toward supination, their pitches are usually going to feature movement to the glove side. That can be a two-edged sword for right-handers, as glove-side movement means the ball moves away from righties but in on lefties. The former exploits a weakness, whereas the latter can play into a strength.

To this end, Sloan's kick-change is something of a cheat code. It has fading, sinking movement that allows it to contrast with the arm-side cut of his fastball and two-plane break of his sweeper. At the least, it's a different look. At the most, it could be a proper weapon.

Since Sloan is still only 19 years old and has yet to pitch above High-A, it's hard to make any ironclad promises about what the kick-change will do for him in the majors. Yet there's already solid evidence that he can use it to avoid the kind of platoon split that can hinder or outright doom right-handers.

To wit, here's how he did against righties and lefties in the minors in 2025:

• vs. RHB: .261/.284/.415 with 4 HR
• vs. LHB: .250/.309/.338 with 1 HR

You take those numbers against righties, and you gladly take those numbers against lefties. If Sloan can continue to make that a theme as he progresses through the minors, whatever scouting reports rival clubs write on him couldn't be as simple as, "Just stack the lineup with lefties."

Sloan is seen by MLB Pipeline as having a major league ETA of 2028, so there's still a lot of time for something to go wrong. For now, though, it's hard not to feel like the Mariners absolutely nailed it when they used a second-round pick on him in 2024.