The Seattle Mariners have gone from being considered to have a middle-of-the-road farm system to it being viewed as having one of the best in baseball over the past year.
Both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline have the Mariners with seven top 100 prospects and the Athletic’s Keith Law ranked the organization’s farm the best in MLB going into the 2025 season.
Many of those top 100 minor leaguers received invitations to Spring Training. But there’s only two players who are anticipated to make their major league debuts at some point in 2025: right-handed pitcher Logan Evans and middle infielder Cole Young.
With so few anticipated graduations, it’s likely that Seattle will maintain an elite minor league system throughout 2025. And they might have even more top 100 players before all is said and done.
The Mariners’ top two 2024 MLB Draft picks, switch-pitcher Jurrangelo Cijntje and right-hander Ryan Sloan, are expected to make their professional debuts in 2025 with the Low-A Modesto Nuts. And Geoff Pontes of Baseball America is high on the potential on Sloan.
In an article for the publication, Pontes highlighted 10 potential breakout minor league pitchers. He mentioned Sloan as a candidate to make himself known in his first year in pro ball.
Pontes had the following assessment on Sloan:
There’s no pitcher from the 2024 draft class whose upside intrigues me more heading into 2025. Sloan has some of the best pure stuff in his high school class and will work with the Mariners’ vaunted pitching development group. This combination of talent and a strong player development environment has me buying into Sloan as a potential star in the making.
Sloan, who was drafted out of high school, stands at 6-foot-5 and weighs 220 pounds, according to his milb.com page. His fastball already touches the upper 90s and his slider and changeup both have plus grades according to Baseball America. The publication ranked him the No. 9 prospect in the organization.
Sloan’s development will be one of the most intriguing storylines to watch in Seattle’s minor leagues.