Mariners make no selections in Rule 5 Draft, lose two players.

Mariners Lost Two Players why Rule 5 Was Not Selected…….

Despite having room on their 40-man roster, the Mariners didn’t select anyone in today’s Rule 5 Draft. Only 10 players were selected in this year’s MLB portion of the Rule 5 Draft, making this the second-smallest class of the past decade (there were nine players taken in 2013). A pair of Yankees pitchers were the first selected, with RHPs Mitch Spence and Matt Sauer going to the A’s and Royals, respectively. LHP Shane Drohan went fourth to the White Sox and RHP Justin Slaten went eighth to the Mets; both were on Ben’s wishlist for Rule 5 picks for the Mariners, but obviously, both were gone by the time the Mariners’ pick rolled around at 21, and they passed.

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Targets for the Mariners in the 2023 Rule 5 Draft
The Mariners were one of the seven teams to lose a player in the MLB portion of the draft (NYY 3, BOS 2, TB, MIA, TEX, AZ, SEA). The Padres took RHP Stephan Kolek with the 15th pick. Kolek, an 11th round pick in the 2018 draft, had toiled at Double-A Arkansas for parts of the past three seasons, working to get his command in hand at the higher levels of the minors. When he’s going well he has a lower-to-mid-90s fastball and a swing-and-miss slider.

The Mariners also didn’t select anyone in the minor league portion of the draft, but again lost a player in the Triple-A phase of the Rule 5 draft: 23-year-old RHP Julio Dilone, who was signed during the pandemic year and spent time pinging back and forth between the ACL and Everett, although he was in Arizona all of this season. Other notable names taken in the minor-league portion of the draft include former Astros first-rounder 1B Seth Beer, taken 28th overall in 2018, and LHP TJ Sikkema, a Yankees first-rounder in 2019 who was part of the Andrew Benintendi trade.

Due to their inactivity in the draft, the Mariners roster remains as free as it was on Tuesday for more additions to come, at 36. Whether those additions come in trades or free agent signings, we’ll have to continue to wait to see.

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