Kade Anderson checked off another box in his pro career Friday, and he did it in his usual fashion: with a healthy heaping of filth.
The No. 3 overall pick in last year’s Draft -- ranked by MLB Pipeline as the No. 18 prospect in baseball -- made his Minor League debut with a bang, striking out the first batter he faced and finishing with six punchouts in four scoreless innings for Double-A Arkansas in 5-4 loss to Midland.
Anderson allowed five hits and a walk, facing traffic in all four of his frames, but worked out of it each time, including a strikeout to leave the bases loaded in the third on a nasty breaking ball in the dirt.
The southpaw finished his night after 59 pitches, 43 of which went for strikes. He forced 12 swings-and-misses; all six of his K’s were swinging.
It was a somewhat delayed regular-season debut for the Mariners’ top pitching prospect, as the club elected to keep him off the mound for the remainder of the 2025 season after he bore a heavy workload in his final year at LSU. He made his exhibition debut early in Spring Training for Seattle, and finished Cactus League play with five earned runs allowed and nine strikeouts in seven innings across three outings. He also appeared in Seattle’s Spring Breakout game, giving up four earned runs in two innings against Milwaukee’s prospects.
Those outings came after Anderson announced his arrival to Peoria with authority, making some of Seattle’s most high-profile hitters look foolish on the back fields.
Coming into the spring, the plan was for Anderson -- and 20-year-old Ryan Sloan, Seattle’s No. 3 prospect -- to begin the year with High-A Everett. But the club saw enough out of both of them in Spring Training to move the pair up to Arkansas together right off the bat. That, and the fact that the weather in Arkansas is generally more consistently conducive to baseball in April than it is in the Pacific Northwest.
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Speaking of Sloan, Mariners fans won’t have to wait long to see the organization’s top right-hander make his own Double-A debut after he pitched to a 3.73 ERA and a 1.16 WHIP in 21 starts between Single-A and High-A last season; he’s slated to start for the Travelers on Saturday.