Meet the Mariners’ 2024 NRIs
Step right up and greet the Mariners’ 2024 NRIs
Lookout Landing’s signature 40 in 40 series gives you an in-depth look at every member of the Mariners’ 40-man roster. But each year, the Mariners also invite a few dozen additional guys to Spring Training. They’re known as non-roster invitees, or NRIs. They tend to be a mix of (a) highly valued and near-MLB prospects and (b) veterans of varying degrees of wiliness. Some of them are here so that the Mariners can assess which minor-league level to start them at, some are hoping to break camp, and some are just here because someone’s got to play the eighth and ninth innings of these March exhibition games.
Every year, some of these guys turn out to be important members of the MLB squad. Paul Sewald and Drew Steckenrider were NRIs in 2021, for instance. Matt Festa and Sam Haggerty were in 2022. And 2023’s crop included Bryce Miller, Bryan Woo, and Jose Caballero. So meet them here and one day you may get to meet them at The Mitt.
Bookmark this page for when you’re watching Spring Training games and wonder, “Who was that again?” I put their Spring Training jersey numbers in parentheses next to their names so you can ctrl+f for either the name or number.
Pitchers (Top Prospects group)
The Mariners’ number 24 prospect according to Lookout Landing, Reid VanScoter (82) is one of the few lefty starters in the system right now, so that gives him a little more shine than his stuff would on its own. But he knows how to work with what he’s got, striking out more than a quarter of the batters he faced, while walking fewer than 6% of them. At 24, he was a little old for High-A, but he did what you’d want him to do. His invitation to camp strikes me as being about giving him some exposure to the MLB coaching staff and opportunities to talk with people like Logan Gilbert and Luis Castillo to see if he learns some things.
Jimmy Joyce (78) and Travis Kuhn (65) are more marginal prospects, just barely making LL’s system writeup. They both finished last year at AA, though Kuhn is a year older. Joyce could be a spot starter, even as soon as this year, since he possesses three good pitches. His main offering is a running sinker that helps induce weak contact and strike guys out. It could be a thing. Kuhn has had command problems in the past but has a very fun slider. You could imagine him working his way into a relief role within the next couple years.
Marcelo Perez (79) is behind them in terms of development, but he had a good year with Modesto last year, with a K%-BB% of 17.1%. It earned him a short stint in Everett to close out the year. He’ll probably be the best pitcher in all of Snohomish County in 2024, so if you’re a Frogs-lover, pay attention when he’s out there this spring.
Southpaw Holden Laws (84) went unranked by every contributor to LL’s top prospects list, even though he won the M’s 2023 Dominate The Zone competition, which comes with an invite to major-league Spring Training. It’s a fun reward, and I hope Laws makes the most of it. More likely than not, it’ll be the closest to MLB that he ever gets. He’ll be eligible for minor league free agency after this year unless he pitches his way onto the 40-man roster by October.
Pitchers (One Last Ride group)
Casey Lawrence (41) pitched 65 cromulent innings for Seattle in 2017-18. He then spent a year playing for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp of NPB and spent the last few years between the Blue Jays and Cardinals. He’s a kitchen-sink thrower, with five pitches he throws at least 10% of the time and another two show-me pitches. That’s an unexciting profile for a middle-relief prospect, but it reads as more fun on a 36-year old hoping for one more year in the sun.
You may remember Ty Buttrey (31) from his time with the Angels. He shocked the baseball world when he retired after the 2020 season, saying in an emotional (now deleted) Instagram post that he was in the game for money and to prove other people wrong, which he viewed as the wrong reasons. But he recaptured some passion for the game during his time away and came back in 2022, playing the last two years for Anaheim and Houston’s AAA teams since then. He signed a minor-league deal with Seattle in January. I can’t decide whether I’m rooting for him to succeed or not.
Heath Hembree (53) is a thousand years old (though still younger than I am). He’s played in parts of the last 11 MLB seasons, most recently pitching four outs for the Rays last year. His heyday was as a middle reliever on the Red Sox 2018 championship squad. The biggest hole in his game has always been managing contact, and that can go from “hole in the game” to “disaster” real quick as a guy gets into his 30s.
Pitchers (I Want To Be Paul Sewald group)
Cory Abbott (38) is a Kate Preusser favorite for 2024’s biggest breakout from The Pile. A veteran of the Cubs’ and Nats’ pitching development, you can see why the Mariners might be able to fix him. He’s mostly been a starter in the minors but the little time he’s spent in the bigs has been as a reliever, in the hopes that he can work better with just two pitches. It’s a fun pair: a four-seamer with decent rise and a faster-than average curveball. LL’s pitching brain trust thinks the curveball is going to supplant the splitter as MLB’s next It Pitch. If true, Kate might be onto something with Abbott.
Sean Poppen (59) and Kirby Snead (43) bring meme-ready names and a lack of strikeout stuff to the table. Snead has the sinker-slider combo that should theoretically work as a lefty specialist, but doesn’t have the command to back it up. But it’s important for the M’s to have some lefty-depth after Gabe Speier and Tayler Saucedo. Poppen was passable in 2021 when he kept his fastball on the edges, but in 2022, it was like he was aiming for a target right in the middle of the zone. The first tweak I’d make with him if I were the Mariners is to get him to stop doing that. #analysis.
Joey Krehbiel (64) got squeezed out of Baltimore’s bullpen as they started getting good. He was actually a decent prospect for a while, with a mix of a plus fastball and changeup with an average slider. It’s not immediately obvious to me why those skills didn’t survive the leap to MLB. If he breaks out with Seattle, that investigation will make for an interesting future article.
Tyson Miller (49) has been on waivers four times in the last three years. The Mariners’ pitching development is good, but Miller’s a guy who couldn’t get it together during two separate stints with the Dodgers, so I’m doubtful he’s the next success story from Seattle’s pitching factory.
Jhonathan Diaz (74) was on the mound for Anaheim in 2021’s Game 161:
Catchers
Home Run Hero Sir Harry Ford (72), you know. One of the Mariners’ blue-chip prospects, the 2021 first-rounder spent all of last year at High-A Everett. Reporting suggests that he’ll see some reps in the infield in addition to playing behind the dish. The LL consensus is that this is to showcase his athleticism for potential trade partners.
Jake Anchia (56) and Matt Scheffler (71) are both long-time org guys, who are necessary to fill out a roster. They’ll mostly be in camp to share the load behind the plate and help catch the endless number of bullpen sessions that take place over February and March. Cal can’t do it alone.
Infielders (Top Prospects group)
Cole Young (92) is, depending on who you ask, the Mariners’ best prospect. Seattle’s first-round pick in 2022, he was drafted as a contact-first plus defender. But he quickly put on some good weight and started hitting enough laser line drives to make you think he could be an above-average major leaguer. Before the Polanco signing, there was a good chance you were going to see him at the Keystone in T-Mobile Park come August. But for all the hype, he has yet to take an AB above Everett, so Spring Training will be an important test for his readiness and a good chance for him to soak in whatever he can from the MLB players and coaches.
The third part of the Paul Sewald trade, Ryan Bliss (1) is a divisive prospect. He ended up at number 14 on Lookout Landing’s list, though I’m personally a lot lower. On the one hand, he put up gaudy numbers across two levels last year, slashing .304/.377/.524 with 23 home runs and 55 stolen bases. On the other hand, that’s not actually that great for AAA these days. The fundamental challenge for Bliss is that at 5’6”, he has to cheat on fastballs in order to get into his legs enough to have meaningful power. But when he does that, he sacrifices his plate discipline. If he’s ever able to square that circle, he’ll be a force. But it’s a tough challenge—you’ve got Jose Altuve, sure, but beyond that, you start talking about guys who are 5’8”, not 5’6”, and that’s a much more meaningful two inches than from 5’11” to 6’1”. This balancing act between plate discipline and power is what to watch for.
Tyler Locklear (87) is probably the most MLB-ready position player in the system. The hulking first baseman packs a wallop and lays off the bad stuff. He’s at the front of the line for playing time if Ty France and Mitch Garver run into trouble, so the front office will be watching Locklear closely in his chances against actual MLB pitchers.
Infielders (Not Quite The Top Prospects group)
Walking spoonerism Brock Rodden (90) looks like the steal of the 2023 Draft so far. Taken in the fifth round, the switch-hitter led off for the monster Modesto squad, and slashed .319/.376/.465, while striking out just 15.3% of the time and playing solid, even good, defense all around the dirt. He’s in camp as a result of having won the hitter’s division of the “Dominate the Zone” competition that the M’s run across their minor-league system, for having most successfully, well, dominated the zone. He made Tier 6 in our top prospects list.
Hogan Windish (91), who just barely cracked our top prospect list, is more likely a DH than even a 1B, although he’s still seeing time at second and third. But Big Hoagie does in fact win at the dish, slashing .286/.388/.504 for his career as a pro.
Once upon a time, Kaden Polcovich (86) was someone we were excited about. The third-round pick in the 2020 Draft that’s turning out to have been kind of a waste, he got glowing reports from the alt site and followed it up with a .271/.415/.505 line at High-A in 2021. But he hasn’t hit nearly as much ever since his mid-2021 promotion to Arkansas, and the shine has come off defensively too. He still knows how to draw a walk and has big personality, so there’s a good chance you’ll notice him when he’s on the field.
Infielders (One Last Ride group)
Despite how long ago we were introduced to him, Michael Chavis (10) is somehow only 28 years old, so you can see why he hasn’t hung ‘em up yet. But over almost 1,200 MLB PAs, he’s got a wRC+ of 80 and a cumulative -0.6 fWAR. He strikes out a lot, doesn’t walk much and has below-average power. You almost certainly won’t see him again after Spring Training. So too for Cole Tucker (28). He’s played about half as much as Chavis, but his MLB wRC+ is a wretched 54.
Infielders (I Only Recently Learned Who This Is group)
Michael Papierski (21) and Rangel Ravelo (35) signed with Seattle as minor-league free agents this offseason. Minor-league journeymen, the former is 28 and the latter 31. They’ve both gotten to set foot on MLB diamonds before and each has a home run to his name, so you’re not even really rooting for an old-guy finally gets his moment situation here. They’ll fill out the back end of games because for some reason they insist on playing all nine innings in Spring Training.
Leo Rivas (76) is more interesting because he’s never appeared in MLB before. After six years in Anaheim’s development system, he wisely tried to catch on with a team that knew what it was doing. In 2020-2021, the Reds looked like they did, but as a shortstop, he got squeezed out by Cincinnati’s plethora of blue-chip infielders. So last season he signed a minor-league deal with Seattle. Suddenly the Mariners’ minor-league infield looks a little crowded too, but he walked almost as much as he struck out in Arkansas while swiping 50 bags, so there’s an outside chance he gets to debut at some point this season.
Outfielders
Alberto Rodriguez (94) was the Mariners return in the Taijuan Walker trade (2020 version). Longtime favorite of staff writer Nick Vitalis, Berto bopped his way onto the 40-man roster after a great 2021, but due to a lack of conditioning and performance, lost that spot within the year, and nobody claimed him on waivers. He had a nice year last year though, conquering Everett with a 158 wRC+, and performed adequately at AA, though even considering the park, you would have liked to see a little more power from a lefty. Even though it seems like he’s been around forever, there’s still time—he’s only 23. He clocked in at #18 on LL’s top prospects list.
Spencer Packard (93) was #26 on that list. He’s got a lower ceiling, but he kind of is what he is at this point, and Spring Training will be a big test for whether they give him a chance in the Show this year. He’s a C the Z guy without much defensive value, so laying off MLB quality breaking balls will be one of the key things to watch for the 2021 ninth-rounder.
If the M’s had invited enough outfielders to split them into groups, Nick Solak (13) would be in the One Last Ride group. Once upon a time, he was the Rangers’ big deadline get for Pete Fairbanks. He teased all of us with a 126 wRC+ when he was called up shortly after the trade. But it was a mirage, as the number fell to 86 over his next three seasons in Texas while his glove fell apart too with a seemingly final move off the dirt. The Mariners signed him to a minor-league deal with an NRI last year, and it didn’t go great. For reasons passing understanding, all parties have decided to try the same thing again.
Isiah Gilliam (61) lists himself as an “Investor” in his Instagram bio. He’s been a decent hitter throughout his minor-league career, which dates back to 2015. But he’s always struck out too much to make it work. One doubts that’ll change at this point, however he should at least get a crack in Tacoma given his power capabilities.