Quick Hits From M’s Farm: Hot starts, plus good news on Farmelo

Apr 18, 2025, 12:46 PM | Updated: 12:49 pm

Mariners Insider, Seattle Sports

We caught up with Seattle Mariners assistant general manager Andy McKay on Thursday’s pregame show on Seattle Sports. In addition to his really interesting perspective as the former M’s farm director on seeing Cal Raleigh rise from a 2018 draft pick to one of the hottest hitters in baseball (link below), he shared thoughts and updates on players in Seattle’s highly-ranked farm system.

Drayer: Rise of Raleigh can be tracked back to Day 1 in M’s system

Here’s a look at three things McKay talked about.

Better than it appears

While Cole Young would appear to be off to a slow start with Triple-A Tacoma, the eyes and the numbers beneath the numbers say anything but.

The No. 46 overall prospect in baseball and No. 3 in Seattle’s system according to MLB.com’s rankings, Young entered Friday with a .221/.338/.294 slash line for a .632 OPS in 18 games with the Rainiers. But he’s walked nine times to 13 strikeouts, and the 21-year-old middle infielder’s quality of contact has been better than it seems, according to McKay.

“The contact has been really good. He’s hit a lot of balls hard, hasn’t had a lot of success so far, but the quality of his bats have been really good and that’s been impressive,” McKay said.

Hit # 2⃣ for Cole goes for 2⃣ bases and brings in another run! pic.twitter.com/lmF4ySICM4

— Tacoma Rainiers (@RainiersLand) April 16, 2025

McKay also noted that Young had a rather memorable at-bat this week.

“Cole got a base hit off of Clayton Kershaw (Wednesday) in a rehab start. That’s gotta be pretty cool.”

You can watch Young’s hit against the future Hall of Famer in the video at this link.

Hot starts by Mariners prospects

Among those who have gotten off to good starts at the plate in the minors, McKay mentioned the Rainiers’ Tyler Locklear and Harry Ford, High-A Everett’s Lazaro Montes, Colt Emerson and Josh Caron, and Low-A Modesto’s Felnin Celesten.

What it means that Everett AquaSox may be “best team” in minors

“Harry’s kind of picked up where he left off in spring training,” McKay said of the No. 4 Mariners and No. 61 overall prospect per MLB. “He’s catching really well. He’s on base constantly, which that’s his game. Harry’s thing is he’s an on-base machine. That’s what he has to continue to do.”

On the pitching side of things, 2024 second-rounder Ryan Sloan threw 3 2/3 innings in an outing for Modesto that drew notice, with seven strikeouts on 59 pitches.

Ryan Sloan was absolutely dealing today 😱

<< 3.2 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K >> pic.twitter.com/6ClHEENGA4

— Mariners Player Development (@MsPlayerDev) April 17, 2025

And last year’s top pick, Jurrangelo Cijntje, has been been turning heads with Everett – and not just because he’s a switch-pitcher.

“I hope that people can start appreciating for how good he is and not just being like this (curiosity),” McKay said of Cijntje.

.@Mariners prospect Jurrangelo Cijntje had 4 strikeouts in 3 IP on Saturday … 1 lefty and 3 righty. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/4sln0wgywK

— MLB (@MLB) April 14, 2025

The right kind of update

Last but not least, a bit of news – good news – from down on the farm.

“Maybe the most exciting thing is Jonny Farmelo is medically cleared. So he’s playing an extended spring games now,” McKay announced.

Farmelo, the 29th overall pick in the 2023 draft, suffered a torn ACL last June catching a fly ball in center field for Modesto that ended his season. McKay said the Mariners “expect” the 20-year-old outfielder to join Everett before May.

“There’s still going to be some some workload restrictions with him, but he will be back in there,” McKay said. “There’s a lot of people around the industry that think he’s our best prospect, which is great that you have real arguments going on outside.”

Farmelo is Seattle’s No. 6 prospect and No. 92 overall per MLB.

Seattle Sports staff made contributions to this post.