On Wednesday, Baseball America came out with its latest Top 100 prospect rankings for the month of June. The Seattle Mariners had five players on the latest edition of the rankings, including Colt Emerson (No. 3), Ryan Sloan (No. 7), Kade Anderson (No. 9), Lazaro Montes (No. 57) and Luke Stevenson (No. 98).
One name missing from the Top 100 is infielder Michael Arroyo, who is starting to heat up at Double-A Arkansas. The 21-year-old homered twice for the Travelers on Wednesday, giving him seven for the season to go along with 28 RBIs and five stolen bases. He also has a .339 on-base percentage while hitting .272.
A native of Colombia, Arroyo has been in the Mariners system since 2022. Known as a bat-first player, he’s a career .275 hitter with 54 minor league home runs.
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A second baseman by trade, there are questions about his ability to play defense at that position moving forward. The Mariners have utilized him in left field this season as well, giving him exposure to the outfield.
He represented Colombia at this year’s World Baseball Classic as well, serving as the team’s primary designated hitter.
He certainly could be. The Mariners are in desperate need of a right-handed hitting infielder to balance out their lefty happy lineup.
Currently, the Mariners utilize four left-handed hitters in the infield with Josh Naylor, Cole Young, JP Crawford and Colt Emerson. Ryan Bliss and Leo Rivas haven’t worked out as the bench options and Patrick Wisdom isn’t a real answer there either.
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Arroyo would provide the ability to hit while also giving some flexibility defensively, but those questions about his infield defense are very real.
Seattle Mariners shortstop Michael Arroyo (96) hits a two run home run in the second inning against the San Diego Padres during a Spring Training game at Peoria Sports Complex. Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images
1) While Arroyo isn’t in the Baseball America Top 100, he is a highly-regarded prospect. In fact, MLB Pipeline ranks him at No. 47 right now. Thus, if the Mariners bring him up, they likely want to give him the runway to play every day, and that doesn’t really exist right now.
It’s more likely that he has that chance in 2027, either in the infield as a result of a JP Crawford departure, or in the outfield as the result of a Randy Arozarena exit. Both Crawford and Arozarena are free agents.
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2) The general roster crunch is real. The Mariners are operating with four outfielders right now because of their platoon system and they still have Brendan Donovan set to return from injury at some point. There isn’t really room for Arroyo, unless the Mariners are prepared to make a difficult decision with someone like Rob Refsynder or Victor Robles.
You can listen to the latest ‘Refuse to Lose Territory’ podcast here, or you can watch the episode on YouTube. The episode features Anderson Hirst of 93.3 KJR and the Locked on Mariners Post-Cast. The next episode comes out on Thursday.
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