The Seattle Mariners have selected 3B Ace Reese out of Mississippi State University with the 24th overall pick in the first round of the 2026 MLB Draft.
Reese was one of the most powerful hitters in college baseball this year and is renowned for his overall abilities as at the plate. Posting some of the best numbers in the country for two years running, Reese’s lefty swing is catered to elevate the ball with authority and he frequently gets to his pull side, allowing his already exceptional power to play
up. At 6’3 205, Reese has a bit of room to add some strength and should be a threat for 25 homers a season at the big league level.
Talking with scouting director Scott Hunter, our own Kate Preusser was able to collect the internal perspective on this year’s first rounder: “He’s got a track record of success. He’s done it at every level, and to be that successful and that impactful in the SEC right now…he had a .383 ISO. He hits right-handers and left-handers. We were very fortunate that he slipped to us at this part of the draft.” Put simply, he’s “one of the best pure college power bats in this draft”.
The bet here is on the bat. It’s likely a third base or left field profile as a professional and though his athleticism isn’t great, he’s a long strider that has better footspeed than many give him credit for, and he should avoid the dreaded move to first base that many corner infielders have to fend off throughout their career. Certainly a bat-first profile, but as a lefty swinger with immense natural abilities at the plate a palatable defense at present, it’s certainly a worthwhile bet to take.
Hunter on their thoughts with Reese defensively: “It’s always hit first. We in the room believe in that, because he’s got some work to do at third base. And he’s aware of that too. He had a little bit of a setback with a foot injury over the fall and spring that set him back a little bit, but he’s motivated. He’s played right field and first base, but he’s a motivated kid that wants to be a third baseman. And with that kind of bat, if we can get him to the place where he’s – get him with Bone over there, get him with Perry, his bat’s going to carry him, but the defense is going to come along. He’s got the skills to do it, it’s just a matter of refining some thing over there.”
“When he started slipping, we made some phone calls. To say we were fortunate – sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good because it really thinned out pretty quick this year. We had a lot of different ideas of who we could cut deals with, where can we move money, who is the next best option if one of those guys don’t get there, and to be able to take Ace was an easy decision for us.”
The love for Reese seems to be universal within the Seattle war room, as both scouts and analysts were enamored with his potential: Hunter emphasized “the information that comes back from our analysts shows that he’s probably one of the top three hitters in the country, and it profiles as a guy who’s going to go out and have success right away – which, I don’t ever want to put a timetable on a player, but to do the things he was doing in the SEC, which is a totally different animal of baseball these days for college sports, it’s really impressive.”
Long time Mariner scout Mark Lummus has reportedly been on Reese since he was in high school, making the room comfortable going with Reese after his up-and-down 2026; the coaching change and Mississippi State was tough on him from an approach perspective, and getting him back to a more modern style of hitting is sure to help him produce more consistently at the dish. When asked about his past season, Hunter seemed unconcerned: “It’s actually interesting. They had a coaching change at Mississippi State this year and had a different hitting philosophy. We talked to him about that in the combine meeting, where early in the year he was trying to do some things that were different with the way the coaching staff had him. And it was the old University of Virginia college staff that went to Mississippi State, and they have their way of doing things. And I think Ace, about a month into the season, went in and said, ‘this is really hard for me, I need to go back to my old routines and my old feel.’ And then he saw some things start really taking off for him, especially late in the season. I think everybody in the room still goes back to the home run against the University of Georgia where he hit the ball to straightaway center. I think it’s still going.”
When asked what makes him “A Mariner”, Hunter made clear “the track record of success coming from a big program, being a team first guy, and he’s kind of like a Kade Anderson – he’s kind of intense when you talk to him. Like I don’t know if he’s on that level yet because we now know more about Kade than when we took him [chuckling], but he’s just a guy that’s been around the game long enough and been in so many different situations and high-level important moments for Mississippi State on TV, big moments, and he’s always been that guy. It seems like he was the leader of that team down there. And there is a presence when you’re six foot four and 200 and some pounds and hit the ball as hard and as far as he does. He was a feared hitter in the SEC.”
“We want to continue this movement that we’ve had with Cole and Colt and obviously Cal a few years ago. If we can continue to add bats like that, it really helps our organization, we’ve really built up a foundation there.”
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