What if Mariners' piggyback is laying a foundation for a Kade Anderson-Ryan Sloan duo?

Of all that has been said about the Mariners' current starting pitching setup, none of it seems overwhelmingly optimistic about what it means for the team. It doesn't seem like a situation that Seattle plans on sustaining for the rest of the season and it could just hold them over until they finalize a trade closer to the deadline.

But what if the organization's real plan is to lay the groundwork for calling up their top two pitching prospects, Kade Anderson and Ryan Sloan, down the stretch?

The Mariners could be experimenting with ways to get Kade Anderson and Ryan Sloan involved in the rotation

As is, the rotation is already overbooked, meaning there's no way to accommodate any additional players, even if both Anderson and Sloan have been compelling enough for the organization to indicate plans to call them up later this year.

For Anderson, the need for a bigger challenge is more immediate. He has marched through his Double-A opposition almost unopposed, posting a 1.02 ERA and 1.60 FIP over 61.2 innings. He has a strikeout rate of 41.1%, a walk rate of just 3.7%, and a whiff rate of 38.9%. Things have been so easy for him in the minors thus far, even the Futures Game lacks appeal.

Sloan's season hasn't been quite as smooth, but there are reasons he still profiles as one of the top pitching prospects in baseball. He has had some shaky starts this year in Double-A and is sitting at a 4.35 ERA and 3.73 FIP over 51.2 innings. On the surface, this seems to suggest that he's not quite ready for the big leagues but it's important to remember that these figures don't tell the whole story. After all, Bryce Miller had a 6.41 ERA in Double-A before being called up in 2023.

Aside from his ERA, Sloan's other numbers are still quite impressive. He's striking 29.2% of batters while walking just 5.6% and is missing plenty of bats with a whiff rate of 32.1%. The only right-handed pitcher ranked higher than him by MLB Pipeline is the Pirates' Seth Hernandez, a premier talent in his own right. Sloan is absolutely a less refined product than Anderson but his upside could be even higher.

For these two arms, a piggyback situation seems like an ideal way to get each player ample innings to gradually acclimate to the big leagues without asking too much of them too early. Plenty of MLB aces got their start coming out of the bullpen, toeing the slab for one inning at a time, but Sloan and Anderson seem ready for a little more than that.

It's unlikely that this is the primary driver behind the Mariners choosing to settle on this unorthodox pitching management strategy, but it could very well be a contributing factor to the decision. If Seattle is being sincere about their intentions to bring Anderson and Sloan along for the second half of 2026, the current test run of the piggyback setup could give the club the data they need to implement it for real.

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