The Seattle Mariners are calling up left-hander Kade Anderson, the best pitching prospect in baseball, to start Saturday against the Chicago Cubs as the Mariners try to salvage their postseason hopes, sources told ESPN on Thursday.
Anderson, 22, is a near-lock to be consensus minor league player of the year after going 10-1 with a 1.06 ERA in 18 starts for Double-A Arkansas. Chosen with the third pick of the 2025 draft out of LSU, Anderson has struck out 135 and walked 13 in 93.1 innings, allowing just 47 hits and 11 runs in 18 starts.
With a 60-68 record, the Mariners are among the most disappointing teams in baseball. After holding a 3-2 advantage against Toronto in the American League Championship Series last season, the Mariners lost the final two games to fall short of their first World Series.
Ineffectiveness and injuries have severely hampered the possibility of a return engagement, though Anderson's promotion could be a boon for a Seattle rotation that has underperformed compared to recent seasons.
With a fastball that sits in the mid-90s, a pair of breaking balls and an elite changeup, Anderson will arrive in Seattle with the sort of raw stuff and command to immediately succeed. While there are questions among evaluators about how Anderson's fastball will play -- it was less effective during spring training, when he was throwing with the major league ball, which differs from the one used at Double-A and below -- they told ESPN his off-speed stuff is elite enough that they expect him to thrive nonetheless.
Anderson split time between the rotation and bullpen his freshman year at LSU in 2024 and blossomed as a sophomore, when he struck out 180 and walked 35 in 119 innings for the College World Series champions.
Seattle lucked into him, first winning the lottery to jump to the third pick with the 15th-best odds and then seeing Washington and the Los Angeles Angels cut under-slot deals with their first two picks. Anderson signed for $8.8 million -- the second-highest figure in the draft, just behind the $9 million given to the No. 4 pick, shortstop Ethan Holliday, by Colorado -- and debuted with the Travelers in April.
Since then, Anderson has held his opponent scoreless in 13 of 18 starts. He gave up nearly half of his runs on the season on May 15 against Northwest Arkansas, which plated five over four innings. In the rest of his outings this season, Anderson has a 0.60 ERA. He threw one scoreless inning as the AL starter for the Futures Game during All-Star week.
In order to accommodate Anderson, right-hander Bryan Woo will have his start moved back. Seattle's rotation has a 3.83 ERA this season, fifth in the AL behind New York, Detroit, Tampa Bay and Cleveland.