How will Kade Anderson promotion impact Mariners’ rotation?

Baseball’s top pitching prospect is set to make his MLB debut this weekend when the Seattle Mariners call up left-hander Kade Anderson to start against the Chicago Cubs, according to a report from ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

There’s more to Mariners’ Kade Anderson than the numbers

It will clearly be a big day at T-Mobile Park when many Mariners fans will get their first up-close look at one of the most promising players to come through the organization. After all, Anderson has built up plenty of hype while climbing to the top of prospect rankings and posting a dazzling 1.06 ERA while striking out batters at an eye-popping 40.5% clip (the best mark in the minors) over 93 1/3 innings in 18 starts at Double-A this year.

But what’s unclear at this point is how Anderson’s promotion to the majors will impact the Mariners’ plans with their starting rotation moving forward, as they will in all likelihood have six starters on their big-league roster for the remainder of the season.

What we do know is how the Mariners treated a similar situation earlier this year when they carried six starting pitchers for more than two months.

Before trading Luis Castillo to the Chicago White Sox at the trade deadline, the Mariners had deployed both a six-man rotation and piggyback strategy while attempting to juggle having six starting pitchers in the majors. It seems likely Seattle would go to one of those two strategies and perhaps a mixture of both.

If the Mariners were to go to a six-man rotation, it would keep Anderson more in line with the routine he’s had while starting once a week in Double-A. However, the club has typically shied away from using a six-man rotation for an extended period of time under president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto and general manager Justin Hollander.

Going back to a piggyback strategy when Anderson starts could help limit the lefty’s innings as he draws closer to a potential innings cap. He’s just 15 2/3 innings short of matching the 119 he pitched for LSU last year, and any inning he pitches past that will be a new career high. A piggyback would also help Anderson avoid having to face a big-league lineup a third time through the order to help soften his landing in the majors.

Both choices would leave Seattle’s bullpen down an arm. However, it would be for just a 10-day stretch since rosters will expand to 28 players on Sept. 1 and the team would likely add another reliever to the bullpen on that date.

The third option, which seems like the least probable, is Seattle could decide to move one of its five current starters to the bullpen. The top candidates for that role would appear to Bryce Miller and Emerson Hancock. Miller was a reliever during his first two college seasons at Texas A&M and has recently struggled to get deeper into games, having completed six innings in only one of his past seven starts. Hancock pitched in a relief role for the Mariners late last season, but he’s also been one of the team’s most consistent starters this year alongside Logan Gilbert.

The one thing we do know for sure at this point is Anderson’s debut Saturday will be appointment viewing for Mariners fans and those who follow baseball closely.

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