ByDan Freedman,
Contributor.
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights.
Dan Freedman is lawyer and IBWAA member who writes about baseball.
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Summary
Top prospect Kade Anderson, the 2025 MLB draft’s third pick, made his major league debut for the Seattle Mariners, becoming the first from his class to reach the big leagues. The lefty skipped lower minors after a dominant Double-A season, posting a 10-1 record with a 1.06 ERA and a 10/1 K/BB ratio. His call-up to the 40-man roster, however, means the Mariners cannot contact him during a potential December 1st lockout, which could hinder his development. In his debut, Anderson pitched 5.2 innings, allowing three earned runs on five hits and striking out five, in a game Seattle won 5-3. His arrival offers a much-needed boost to the Mariners, whose pitching staff has recently struggled, hoping to turn their season around.
Kade Anderson made his major league debut on Saturday afternoon against the Chicago Cubs. (Photo by Eric Hiller/MLB Photos via Getty Images) MLB Photos via Getty Images
Kade Anderson, the third pick in the 2025 MLB draft, made his major league debut on Saturday afternoon in Seattle against the Chicago Cubs. He became the first player from that class to make it to the big leagues.
According to Keith Law of The Athletic, Anderson is number one prospect in baseball. There was much consternation about bringing him up from Double-A Arkansas. Anderson pitched two seasons at baseball juggernaut LSU, accruing a 16-3 record before entering the draft last year. Due his heavy workload helping the Tigers win their eighth national title, Seattle elected to have him sit out the remainder of 2025 to avoid injury.
Anderson, a 6’2” lefty, skipped the lower levels of the minors and has spent the entire season at Double-A, where he went 10-1 with a 1.06 ERA, and struck out 135 batters vs. just 13 walks. A 10/1 strikeout to walk ratio will play in any league.
But, because Anderson is just one year out of college and has been in Double-A all season, he was not on Seattle’s 40-man roster. That changed when the team elected to call him up. As a general matter, Anderson won’t pitch in enough games this season to lose his rookie status for next year. However, because he is now on the 40-man roster, the Mariners will not be allowed to have any contact with him in the event there is a lockout come December 1st. And with a rookie getting his first taste of big league competition, with potentially many things to learn from and work on, Seattle — and Anderson — may find it quite problematic that they cannot communicate with each other for the duration of the lockout. It is impossible to know — especially at this early date — the impact that will have on the pitcher’s development, but it is not an ideal situation. Had the Mariners kept Anderson on the farm for the whole year, they could have worked with him all winter, regardless of any labor dispute.
When the Mariners bestowed a $8.8 million signing bonus on the pitcher, they had high hopes he could be someone around whom they could (re)build a pitching staff. Fortunately for the team, they already have an abundance of pitching, which meant that Anderson could develop at a reasonable pace in the minors. Unfortunately for the team, that pitching staff has been bad lately. Since July 21st, they have an ERA of 5.56, with the starters coming in at 4.75. Those numbers represent the third-worst in baseball during that stretch, just ahead of the Rockies and Athletics.
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In his first start, the phenom went 5-2/3 innings, striking out five against two walks, while allowing three earned runs on five hits. But the final numbers belie the quality of his debut. Anderson retired nine of the first ten batters he faced, and was greatly assisted by Randy Arozarena robbing Miguel Amaya of a home run in the third. The sixth inning is where the rookie met his match. Facing the Cubs batters for the third time, he allowed a double to MVP-hopeful Pete Crow-Armstrong, and then, after a double play, back-to-back homers by Alex Bregman and Michael Busch. That was it for Anderson, who left the game trailing with the Mariners trailing 3-2. Seattle rallied with three runs in the bottom of the ninth, capped by Arozarena’s second dinger of the game, this one of the walk-off variety.
Randy Arozarena celebrates his second home run of the game, this one a walk-off in Kade Anderson’s big league debut. (Photo by Eric Hiller/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
MLB Photos via Getty Images
Anderson may provide more than just reinforcement for the rotation; he may provide a boost to a middling team that was picked to win the American League West but is currently six games under .500, three games out of first in the AL West, and in two out of the wild card race (but will need to jump over four teams to get there). If the come-from-behind victory and the roar of more than 45,000 fans on Saturday afternoon were any indication, Anderson’s arrival could portend great things is Seattle for the rest of this season, and for many more to come.
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