A closer look at Mariners’ top pitching prospect Logan Evans

Less than two years ago, Logan Evans was an unheralded 12th-round draft pick who had logged a 6.78 ERA over four college seasons at Penn State and the University of Pittsburgh.

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Now, the 23-year-old right-hander is one of the Seattle Mariners’ top pitching prospects. Last summer, he even surged into Baseball America’s Top 100 prospect rankings.

It’s been a meteoric rise for Evans, who has been yet another success story for Seattle’s renowned pitching pipeline.

“I’ve changed a lot since I got drafted to the Mariners,” Evans said during an appearance on this week’s edition of the Hot Stove on Seattle Sports.

That might be an understatement.

After entering the Mariners’ system, Evans added pitches. He altered grips. He enhanced his mindset and plan of attack. And the results were quickly evident.

Sporting a new six-pitch mix, the 6-foot-4 Evans created serious buzz in minor league camp last spring. He then backed that up with a strong full-season pro debut in Double-A Arkansas, where he posted a 3.20 ERA with 98 strikeouts in 107 innings.

“I was coming in as a kid that just had three pitches (and) didn’t know really what to do with them in a sense of how to attack a hitter,” Evans said. “I was just going out there just trying to throw each one as hard as I could.”

Evans’ arsenal now features a 93-97 mph sinker, a four-seam fastball, a low-90s cutter, a nasty 81-86 mph sweeper, a curveball and a high-80s changeup.

“They’ve helped me adjust grips (and) told me that if I can throw a pitch in catch play, I can use it in the game,” Evans said of the Mariners. “I could always mess around in catch play and throw them, but I never really had the confidence to use it. And they showed me the numbers that backed it up, and then I obviously created this whole different arsenal. And I actually have a plan of attack.”

Evans also credited his success to an improved mindset.

“I just started to just simplify the game,” Evans said. “… I think a lot of my development was just the mental part and just letting myself be free. Go be an athlete. Don’t overthink things, because this game has so many things that you can think on, but in reality it doesn’t really help you at the end of the day.”

Here are a few other nuggets from Evans, who is slated to start the Mariners’ second game of Cactus League play at 12:10 p.m. Saturday against the Los Angeles Angels.

A better feel

Evans said he’s noticed a difference between MLB’s baseballs and the balls used in the minors.

“They move a lot,” Evans said. “For the east-west (horizontal movement) guys, it’s a nice (transition) from the minor leagues to the majors. … For a guy who has sink and doesn’t really want a lot of vert, that’s good for me.

“I’ve definitely noticed an uptick in my sinker movement and my sweeper movement.”

Evans said the biggest difference is the laces.

“It’s way more comfortable in the hand, because the major league balls are wound so tight that, besides the laces, it’s really compressed,” Evans said. “So the laces feel really high, when in reality they’re like the same size as the minor leagues.

“I’m excited to use it in game,” he added. “I only got to throw with it for eight pitches last year in the spring game I was in. So hopefully I get some more reps and use that.”

His bullpen experiment

The Mariners briefly moved Evans to the Arkansas bullpen last June, with the idea of potentially adding him as an extra arm to the major league team’s bullpen down the stretch. But after 10 relief appearances, they decided to move Evans back to his usual starting role.

“It was cool to see baseball from a different lens of the unknown,” Evans said. “I realized in that moment that I was such a creature of routine, and that’s why I feel like I take to starting very well. But it was cool to just be kind of thrown into the fire.”

One day at a time

When asked about expectations for himself this season, Evans said he’s learned to take a different approach.

“I don’t really like to look in the future like that,” Evans said. “I kind of got caught up in that stuff last year with going from practically zero to 100 in the spring, and then carrying that over into the season. I started to look ahead and worry about things that I couldn’t worry about.

“And yeah, yes, I have expectations of staying healthy and being a good teammate and all that. But I’m never gonna be like, ‘Oh, I need to make the majors by this time. I need to have a certain ERA.’ I just think those are things that just don’t really have that much of a positive outcome – (as opposed to) just worrying about day to day and can you give your best effort that day.”

The Hot Stove airs from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday nights on Seattle Sports 710 AM, the Seattle Sports app and SeattleSports.com. Hear this week’s full conversation with Logan Evans at this link and this link, or in the audio players in this post.

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