Mariners June mock

/ seattleseamocks

By Jared Stanger

It’s becoming more and more commonly written and discussed that the 2025 MLB Draft is not very strong at the very top of the class. This is truly unfortunate because Seattle had previously seemed to get quite lucky to end up with the #3 overall pick this year in the draft lottery, when their earned draft position was closer to #15 overall. As I’ve been studying this draft class; I’m really struggling to find a guy that feels worthy of the third pick. In my previous mock, my thought was to try to find upside with that pick by drafting one of the high school players, but even that wasn’t super satisfying. Thinking like a football draft student…I really wanted to find a way to trade down the third pick. This isn’t allowed under the rules of the MLB Draft structure.

Then, a few days ago, I woke up at, like, 3:30 in the morning with this idea…

In the MLB Draft, if you don’t sign your draftpick in the first or second round; you will get to draft at the same slot plus one the following year. This means that the Mariners, if they don’t sign the guy they draft with the #3 pick next month, will be awarded the #4 overall pick in the 2026 Draft. So you would, ostensibly, be trading down one slot and one year.

The Mariners WILL NOT do this. No MLB team does this. The primary reason that teams don’t do this is that the signing bonus allotment for every team is aligned directly with the order of their picks, and in the top 10 rounds, the bonus allotment that coincides with a specific pick will be forfeited from their total bonus pool if they don’t sign the player at that slot.

In exact terms of the 2025 Draft…due to the high value of their lottery pick at #1.3, plus a compensatory competitive balance pick they were awarded at #1.35 overall, Seattle has ended up with the largest total bonus pool of all 30 MLB teams. This is only true if they sign all eleven of their picks in the top ten rounds. The M’s total bonus pool for the top ten rounds is: $17,074,400. The bonus pool assigned to the #3 pick alone is: $9,504,400. If the Mariners don’t sign whoever they end up drafting there; their bonus pool immediately shrinks to $7,570,000. This is a loss of 55% of their potential spending. And that pool can be spent in any way the team sees fit, as long as they sign someone at each draftpick. This new amount would take Seattle from the most bonus pool in MLB, to the fifth-worst bonus pool.

But here is where the conversation gets interesting. Seattle, in their 2025 season, are currently not playing to a level that they would make the playoffs. They are currently on pace to earn the #14 overall pick for the 2026 Draft. That pick would also be entered into the Draft Lottery for next year where they could win a pick in the top six or seven in that class. Seattle could, conceivably, end up with two picks in the top eight overall, and certainly two picks in the top fifteen. And, in baseball drafts, the talent level can swing wildly from year to year. Thirteen months away from the 2026 Draft, the early opinion is that next year’s class is easily better than this year’s.

If you followed this strategy…the 2026 Draft could be franchise (re)defining for the Seattle Mariners. And I think it’s worth doing.

So……in this mock draft, I am not terribly concerned with who we/Seattle drafts at #3. I think you draft a high school player, simply because they are the most likely to give the optics of being hard to sign away from their college commitment. It could be a college player…Kumar Rocker was recently an un-signed college player when he was drafted #10 overall in the 2021 Draft, he didn’t sign and returned to Vanderbilt, and then he signed after being picked with the #3 overall pick in the 2022 Draft. But, again, the optics will look better with a prep player.

#1.3 – RHP, Corona HS, Seth Hernandez

The top two high school players are IF Ethan Holliday and Hernandez, and there’s pretty good odds that one of the two will be available at #3. Righthanded HS pitching is notoriously the most-risky category to draft early, and Hernandez is one of the older players coming out of the prep class, as he will turn 19 on June 28th. Hernandez is currently, and ironically, committed to go to college at Vanderbilt. He may actually have a pretty high asking price to sign this year, so it would look believable if they didn’t end up signing him.

Again, the downside to this is, honestly, not the loss of a player at the third pick…the loss is the flexibility to make moves via overslot deals later on in the draft. They COULD still draft and negotiate to make those kind of picks happen, but it would be harder, and probably with less-talented players.

#1.35 competitive balance – RHP, Louisville, Patrick Forbes

To me, I look at Forbes as a guy that might actually be deserving of being picked with the #3 pick. There are four pitchers at the top of the college leaderboard in SO/9…three of the four are lefthanded. The #2 guy is a reliever that has enough innings to qualify for rate stats, and the #1 and #4 guys are Liam Doyle and Kade Anderson…two starters that are getting talked about as top five overall picks. So Forbes would be the steal of the group if actually acquired at #35.

Forbes is a 6’3″/220lb, well-built, former two-way player with athletic movements and already touching triple digits. And, counter to Seth Hernandez being old for a high school player, Forbes is young for a college draft-eligible player. Patrick will turn 21 on July 11 this year…two days before the first night of the draft. This probably matters for teams like Seattle. They drafted Jurrangelo Cijntje last year when he was only one month past his 21st birthday.

It’s a mild disappointment not to get a lefthander from our first pick, but just like the general consensus is trending toward “the top ten of this class is not strong”; the consensus also believes this class has decent depth and is strong in lefthanded pitching throughout.

#2.57 – LHP, Iowa, Cade Obermueller

Speaking of LHP…as I’ve been trying to formulate my backwards-forward draft modeling; in order to pass on the LHP that fill out the top 10 overall of this draft, I need to feel comfortable with who I can get later on. Obermueller is one of the guys I’ve landed on. He’s only listed 6’0″/170lbs, and he’s probably shorter in reality, but the stuff looks like a Seattle kind of guy. The fastball is up to 98mph, and there are other things in the profile that look like our analytics.

#3.91 – OF, George Mason, James Quinn-Irons

I hadn’t looked at JQI before I wrote my first Mariner mock last month, but once I did; I had to find a way to draft him. This is a guy that is 6’5″/230lbs, he plays a very strong defensive centerfield, he has hit 16 HR with 85 RBI in 61 games this year, he’s gotten on-base at a .523 clip, AND he’s stolen 36 bags in 43 attempts. That sounds like five tools to me.

Of all the touted Seattle prospects on our farm right now; there are almost no outfielders other than Laz Montes. If we could draft a fast-moving college outfielder now, by the end of the 2026 season, Randy Arozarena will be a free agent, and Victor Robles will have a club option to be picked up (or not).

#4.122 – RHP, Abilene Christian, Dominick Reid

Reid is a 6’3″/201lb righty starter that transferred from Oklahoma State to Abilene this year to, presumably, get more opportunity in the rotation rather than in the bullpen. He’s got a 3.36 ERA, 1.109 WHIP, 11.4 SO/9 in 15 starts.

#5.152 – RHP, Baylor, Gabe Craig

It’s kind of tough to find relief pitchers for the baseball draft because there are so many schools and even more pitchers, but no great way to filter for just relief innings. When I see any kind of reference to a good reliever; I try to make a note of the name to research him when I can, if not immediately. Craig is one of those names. Once I heard his name, I checked for his tape and his statline, and he was instantly the top reliever in my pitching metric. Listed 6’5″/209lbs; Craig has the prototypical build. His mechanics and stuff all looked good once I found some tape of him. The only yellowflag was that he will be 24 years old the week before the draft. I’m not sure this matters that much, as Seattle drafted a few over-aged college relievers just last year (including 24 y/o Charlie Beilenson in the 5th round). If we need to make some bonus slot room, this is the first spot we can save a good chunk.

#6.182 – 3B, Cincinnati, Kerrington Cross

Both Cross and Boston Smith would be candidates for underslot deals as potential senior-sign guys. I’ve basically ignored the prep players in this mock that might need overslot money, so I don’t really feel the need to worry about underslotting anyone either. Everybody is simply getting slot.

Cross is a 6’0″/215lb infielder that hit .396/.526/1.173 with 12 HR, 50 BB, 35 SO, and 15 SB this year. I’m, honestly, a bigger fan of his intelligence and leadership than his statline, and I still like his statline.

#7.212 – LHP, Florida, Pierce Coppola

I had Coppola in my previous mock, but his positioning might have been too high for his age and injury redflags. Plus, he was touched up a bit in his most-recent CWS start. In the 7th round, he looks more like Seattle’s 2024 draftee from the 11th round, Christian Little, who was also a once highly-touted pitcher from an SEC school whose college career never managed to take solid footing.

Coppola is a 6’8″/245lb southpaw whom has only managed a total of 49.1 innings pitched across his four-year college career, but whose stuff has earned him a 2.53 ERA, 0.984 WHIP, and 18.1 SO/9 when he has managed to pitch this year. If he falls this far, Coppola is the ideal type of high-reward player you’d love to get with a low-risk pick like this. He may end up a lights-out, high-leverage reliever and that will help him maintain his health.

#8.242 – C, Texas, Rylan Galvan

Behind Cal Raleigh there’s only Harry Ford and then Josh Caron as catchers on Seattle’s top 30 prospect list. So I’m spending another top 10 pick on a catcher. Galvan strikes me as a guy that our pitching staff will love to throw to. Great receiving/throwing/leadership skills. The bat is okay at .296/.452/1.065 with 15 homers last year.

#9.272 – RHP, Rice, Davion Hickson

I’ve been trying to look at some of the things that Seattle might have seen in 4th rounder Bryce Miller, 6th rounder Bryan Woo, 12th rounder Logan Evans that led them to draft them, and for them to make it to MLB in fairly short order. I don’t know that I have it nailed, but Hickson is a guy that popped for me as a potential pitcher in that vein. Listed 6’2″/208lbs with 3.82 ERA, 1.288 WHIP, and 11.1 SO/9 this year.

#10.302 – 2B, Georgia State, Kaleb Freeman

I had Georgia’s Robbie Burnett in a similar place in my previous mock, but after digging a bit deeper I realized that Burnett has primarily been playing LF this year for the Bulldogs. Freeman has been playing mostly 2B (with some RF) for Georgia State. He can switch-hit and for the year slashed .349/.504/1.236 with 16 HR, 61 BB, 57 SO, and 15 SB.

#11.332 – RHP, Vanderbilt, Sawyer Hawks

Hawks has a similar story to recent #1 overall pick Paul Skenes. Both started at the Air Force Academy, both transferred to an SEC school, both showed dominance in their respective roles for said SEC school. Hawks has been exclusively a reliever posting a 1.60 ERA, 0.800 WHIP, 11.8 SO/9 with 8 saves in 18 appearances.

#12.362 – 1B, Loyola Marymount, Beau Ankeney

This late in this mock, I’m kind of looking to fill some holes and draft some positions/profiles I may not have added up to this point. So I was looking for a 1B with some power and I found Ankeney. Listed 6’4″/235lbs, Beau built on a pretty solid 2024 season at Grand Canyon University after transferring to Loyola where he hit .358/.453/1.164 with 22 HR, 69 RBI, 30 BB, 53 SO in 57 games. His batspeed really caught my eye.

#13.392 – 3B, Austin Peay, Ray Velazquez

I had Velazquez in my previous mock. I’m moving him down a few rounds because I’m still not seeing him getting much buzz. He’s a senior-sign player that will be 23 in September. He was previously riding the bench for Vanderbilt, but transferred to Austin Peay to get more opportunity. And this year, with that opportunity, he hit .364/.479/1.207 with 18 HR, 32 BB, 32 SO.

#14.422 – LHP, St Joseph’s, Colton Book

I have two LHP that showed up back-to-back on my pitching metric with nearly identical profile. Book and Jordan Gottesman, from Northeastern, are both 22 year old lefthanded starting pitchers getting by more on pitchability than present stuff. But I like a guy that can control the zone that we can try to build the velo with.

Book’s 2025 went: 3.53 ERA, 0.992 WHIP, 12.7 SO/9, 2.1 BB/9. And he’s got the more prototypical pitcher frame at 6’4″/215lbs.

#15.452 – CF, Dallas Baptist, Nathan Humphreys

Another guy that is already 22 years old and a senior-sign. Humphreys plays a very strong defensive centerfield. He hit .353/.457/1.135 with 17 HR, 38 BB, 38 SO, and 21 SB. It’s a nice, well-rounded profile with a lefthand profile. After writing the bulk of this mock I found a new source that had Humphreys going way earlier than this, which makes sense. His profile shouldn’t last this long. But I can’t fit him in earlier in this version.

#16.482 – C, Wright State, Boston Smith

I had Smith in my previous Mariner mock, but in an earlier round. After seeing more of him during the CWS regionals, and not seeing his stock go up; I’ve decided to wait on him a bit. Listed 5’10″/195lbs; Smith has hit .330/.498/1.269 this year with 26 HR, 57 BB, 52 SO, and 16 SB. And he’s a lefty-hitting catcher. Like Humphreys, I would tend to think we need to pick him earlier than this.

#17.512 – RF, Kent State, Jake Casey

At this point, most draft big board listings have run out of players after naming 500. So I’m really just guessing approximate draft value from names that I pinned at some point and who aren’t listed in the 500.

My first choice in these last four is kind of a superstitious pick, of which most of the story I’m not going to get into. Suffice to say…Casey is a 6’2″/190lb lefty-hitting OF that hit .356/.500/1.236 this year with 17 HR, 37 BB, 56 SO, and 20 SB. He is also a legacy player being the son of former all-star 1B, Sean Casey.

#18.542 – RHP, Texas, Max Grubbs

Grubbs is a nice little reliever for the Longhorns. 6’1″/200lbs posting a 2.84 ERA, 1.123 WHIP, 9.6 SO/9, 2.2 BB/9 with 5 saves this year.

#19.572- RHP, Coastal Carolina, Ryan Lynch

Lynch is a bullpen piece for CCU with closer experience. He transferred there after stops in Bellingham and Bellevue Community College. Lynch is an Everett, WA native standing 6’4″/234lbs with a 0.59 ERA, 1.043 WHIP, 10.0 SO/9, 2.9 BB/9 and 8 saves season line.

#20.602- SS, Bryant, Drew Wyers

Seattle has a pretty strong farm system full of shortstop prospects, so I didn’t really make drafting one a priority. But it’s still important to draft one to fill out your minor league roster(s).

Wyers is listed 6’2″/200lbs and hit .407/.521/1.231 this year with 11 HR, 26 BB, and only 17 SO in 45 games.

And, since I “traded” away our first round pick for the #4 pick next year…here are some potential high-end 2026 draft targets:

UCLA SS Roch Cholowsky

Highschool SS Jacob Lombard.

Highschool SS Grady Emerson.

Highschool OF Brady Harris.

Georgia Tech OF Drew Burress.

Coastal Carolina RHP Cameron Flukey.

Florida RHP Liam Peterson.

Florida Atlantic LHP Trey Beard.

North Carolina draft-eligible sophomore RHP Ryan Lynch.

Highschool LHP Gio Rojas.

I already think that group looks better than 2025. Good luck getting Jerry Dipoto and crew to recognize this, and/or to have the stones to do it.