Top Mariners pitching prospects Anderson and Sloan will start at Double-A

SEATTLE -- Turns out Kade Anderson and Ryan Sloan won’t have to turn their fast friendship into a pen-pal situation.

The Mariners’ top two pitching prospects will begin their regular season together at Double-A Arkansas, the organization announced on Monday. That itself wasn’t a major surprise, given what was hinted at after their impressive showings at Spring Training.

Yet it was a fairly notable jump for each.

This will be Anderson’s first foray into pro baseball, other than Cactus League play, having been shut down for the remainder of 2025 after being selected No. 3 overall in last year’s MLB Draft. And it will be a promotion for Sloan, who finished last season with three starts at High-A Everett.

Anderson is the Mariners’ No. 2 prospect and MLB Pipeline’s No. 19 overall, while Sloan is No. 3 and No. 31, respectively.

Before pitchers and catchers reported to Arizona, the tentative plan was for Anderson and Sloan to each begin the year at Everett. But the calculus changed after the imposing impression that both made over the ensuing six weeks. The less volatile weather conditions in Arkansas compared to the Pacific Northwest in April made the decision easier.

And the club isn’t ruling out a possible leap to the Majors at some point later this season, though many things would have to play out for that to happen.

Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto suggested that Anderson and Sloan were each on a similar trajectory to Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo in 2023, and those two were in the big league rotation by June when the club lost Marco Gonzales and Robbie Ray to season-ending injuries.

Anderson is probably ahead of Sloan on the organization's depth chart for the basic factor of having a longer track record of workload, having logged 119 innings last year at LSU. But Sloan’s stuff can clearly generate big league outs right now, despite being the ripe age of 20.

It’s not hard to envision a situation where either -- or both -- are pitching in consequential games down the stretch, even if it’s not as a starter.

“It kind of just allowed me to realize that I belong there,” Sloan said of pitching in his first big league Spring Training. “My stuff is good enough. I have a good head on my shoulders. My preparation is very similar what they're doing. So it just gave me a lot of confidence.”

Indeed, Anderson and Sloan were the talk of camp before Cactus games began for the intensity of their bullpen sessions, how their stuff played against Seattle’s best hitters in live batting practice and the presence they carried among the big league rotation.

Before being reassigned, they were treated as extensions of the five-man group.

“The cool thing with those two already is how mature [they are] and their sense of belonging -- and not in an inflated way,” Logan Gilbert said. “But my first year, I was almost trying to fit in. And I told Kade right away, and I think I told Sloan, too, like, 'Just be yourself and know you're good enough and don't think, am I stepping on toes? You're a part of this group.'

“And it's not like we're trying to include them because they're 21 years old and we're supposed to be the older guy. It's like, they're part of the group. It's natural. It’s genuine.”

Anderson made three Cactus League starts, flashing a true four-pitch mix while showing maturation to better harness his wildly competitive demeanor. He gave up five earned runs on seven hits with nine strikeouts and three walks while reaching 51 pitches in his final outing, building a workload similar to those in the Major League rotation.

Sloan made just one Cactus appearance before shifting his work to the back fields, but wowed with his overpowering stuff. His real shining moment came in Spring Breakout, the prospect showcase game, in which he went nine up and nine down with three strikeouts over 39 pitches.

Drafted in the second round in 2024 at No. 55 overall and signing for well over slot value at $3 million, Sloan made 18 starts at Single-A Modesto before being promoted to Everett, which proved to be a short stay. Overall, he had a 3.73 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 90 strikeouts and 15 walks over 82 innings.