The Seattle Mariners are calling up left-handed pitcher Kade Anderson to make his first big league start on Saturday, August 23rd against the Chicago Cubs. The long awaited debut comes following a road trip where Seattle struggled to contain three potent offenses, covering their chances of upsetting a few of the best teams in baseball and making up ground in the American League West.
Anderson has not been merely lights out so much as vantablack with Double-A Arkansas in the Texas League. Anderson is
all but universally viewed as the top pitching prospect in baseball due to stellar stuff, plus command, and a dominant résumé from his time on campus at LSU up through this summer with the Travelers. Some evaluators have even placed him as the best prospect in all of baseball, full stop. His 1.06/1.78/2.67 ERA/FIP/DRA are mildly aided by a very friendly home field for pitchers in Dickey-Stephens Park, but what has aided them more is Anderson being an absolute monster. He has dominated every lineup he has faced, from veteran filled rosters 4 to 6 years his senior to highly regarded prospect groups, including a star-studded Tulsa Drillers team that features several of the top prospects in baseball as the AA affiliate for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Anderson utilizes a deep bag of tricks, all of which he commands excellently. His fast ball doesn’t explode on the radar gun, but there is some aspect of deception in Anderson’s Leke delivery that lets it get on opposing hitters far quicker than one would expect. He complements those heaters and nasty mid 80s slider that is his best out pitch, a tight breaking ball that has befuddled hitters of either handedness. Anderson also utilizes a beautiful big breaking curveball which frequently buckles knees and freezes hitters, alongside a firm change up that completes a gorgeous compass Rose of movement profiles.
Watching Anderson, it’s been reasonable to say he is one of Seattle’s five best starting pitchers, even in a rotation that for much of the year has been a strength. It’s been defensible to continue letting the existing starters have their run considering each has big league success they can point to, but the timing of Anderson‘s promotion cannot be decoupled from the passing of the recent service time deadline. With under 45 days to go in the service time calendar, Anderson will maintain rookie eligibility in 2027, keeping him eligible for the prospect promotion incentives rewards without risking an additional year of closer proximity to free agency.
President of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto recently stated there was no intention to have Anderson come up and work in relief. Mariners fans should know by now not to take any public comments from Dipoto as gospel, but the level at which Anderson has performed is meritorious of a rotation look. Seattle has been cautious with him in terms of innings, rarely letting Anderson face opponents more than twice through the order, which is a point worth monitoring when considering his numbers. But even in outings frequently kept around five frames for that reason, Anderson has been hilariously efficient and effective.
