Sources: Mariners calling up top pitching prospect Kade Anderson - ESPN

The Seattle Mariners are calling up left-hander Kade Anderson, the best pitching prospect in baseball, to start Saturday against the Chicago Cubs as the Mariners try to salvage their postseason hopes, sources told ESPN on Thursday.

Anderson, 22, is a near-lock to be consensus minor league player of the year after going 10-1 with a 1.06 ERA in 18 starts for Double-A Arkansas. Chosen with the third pick of the 2025 draft out of LSU, Anderson has struck out 135 and walked 13 in 93.1 innings, allowing just 47 hits and 11 runs in 18 starts.

With a 60-68 record, the Mariners are among the most disappointing teams in baseball. After holding a 3-2 advantage against Toronto in the American League Championship Series last season, the Mariners lost the final two games to fall short of their first World Series.

Ineffectiveness and injuries have severely hampered the possibility of a return engagement, though Anderson's promotion could be a boon for a Seattle rotation that has underperformed compared to recent seasons.

With a fastball that sits in the mid-90s, a pair of breaking balls and an elite changeup, Anderson will arrive in Seattle with the sort of raw stuff and command to immediately succeed. While there are questions among evaluators about how Anderson's fastball will play — it was less effective during spring training, when he was throwing with the major league ball, which differs from the one used at Double-A and below — they told ESPN his off-speed stuff is elite enough that they expect him to thrive nonetheless.

Anderson split time between the rotation and bullpen his freshman year at LSU in 2024 and blossomed as a sophomore, when he struck out 180 and walked 35 in 119 innings for the College World Series champions.

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