Why No. 3 overall pick Kade Anderson wanted Mariners to draft him

The Seattle Mariners have built a reputation as one of baseball’s best organizations at developing pitching.

It’s easy to see why.

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Seattle’s stellar starting rotation, which was baseball’s best two seasons ago, features four homegrown starters in Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo. Gilbert, Kirby and Woo have each earned an All-Star nod and finished top-10 in American League Cy Young voting, while Miller is just two years removed from a season where he posted a 2.94 ERA over 180 1/3 innings.

The Mariners have two more talented pitching prospects who are nearing their first taste of the major leagues in left-hander Kade Anderson and right-hander Ryan Sloan. Anderson, the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 MLB Draft, is the No. 21 prospect in all of baseball, according to MLB Pipeline. Sloan, a second-round pick out of high school in 2024, is the No. 33 prospect. Both could make their big league debuts at some point this season.

Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob recently had the chance to sit down with Anderson at Mariners camp in Peoria, Ariz., and the LSU product told them he was actually hoping the Mariners would be the team to pick him.

“Obviously a super special day. A lot of emotions going on beforehand and you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Anderson said of the draft. “But I will say before the draft, I was hoping to go to the Mariners – you can believe me or not. My pitching coach (LSU’s Nate Yeskie) actually coached at Oregon State and he kind of knew about the Mariners and basically was telling me, like, if you have the chance to be a part of the Mariners, it’d be a good spot for you just because of the pitching development.

“I truly believe that the team you go to really does matter. It’s not just luck of the draw. There’s teams that are better at developing than others, and I think I got really lucky.”

The Mariners themselves seemed to get lucky not just in receiving the No. 3 pick last year thanks to the draft lottery, but also in landing Anderson. He was widely regarded as the top pitching prospect in the draft class, yet the Los Angeles Angels picked right-hander Tyler Bremner at No. 2 overall.

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Anderson is soaking in his first spring camp with the M’s, which has included learning what he can from watching the members of the club’s vaunted rotation.

“Obviously this rotation is very special, so it’s just been fun to observe how they go about their business,” he said. “The cool thing is they’re all very unique. They’re all very different in their own ways. So it’s definitely been really cool to kind of see how they go about their business and kind of pick up a few things from them.”

Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player in this story. Listen to Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob weekdays from 2-7 p.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app. 

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