SEATTLE (AP) \u2014 The Seattle Mariners have agreed to a $95 million, eight-year deal with top prospect Colt Emerson, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The contract, which starts this season and includes a team option for 2034, would be the largest ever for a player who has not made his major league debut.<\/p>\n
The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because the deal hasn\u2019t been announced.<\/p>\n
Mariners manager Dan Wilson congratulated Emerson ahead of Seattle’s Tuesday night game against the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn incredible day for him, I\u2019m sure,” Wilson said. “And, a great spring training. No doubt about it. And, what we have seen from him, he\u2019s a great kid and a great player. And, it\u2019s an exciting day for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mariners selected the 20-year-old shortstop with the 22nd overall pick in the 2023 amateur draft. Emerson entered the season as Baseball America’s No. 7 prospect.<\/p>\n
Emerson batted .357 with one home run and a double and a 1.000 on-base percentage plus slugging in three games for Triple-A Tacoma. He appeared in 18 spring training games for the Mariners and batted .268 with two homers and eight RBIs and an .828 OPS.<\/p>\n
What impressed Wilson most about Emerson during spring training was his approach at the plate, as well as how he handles himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very reminiscent of a lot of guys that we have in this clubhouse. Just the way, his desire to win. And, it\u2019s really a great driver of who he is and how he plays this game. And, as we\u2019ve talked about in spring training sometimes, he just plays with a little bit more maturity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emerson is believed to be Seattle’s shortstop of the future, and will one day replace J.P. Crawford, who is the longest tenured player on the Mariners roster.<\/p>\n
Crawford began a rehab assignment with Triple-A Tacoma on Tuesday. He started the season on the 10-day injured list because of a right shoulder injury.<\/p>\n
It is unclear once Crawford is healthy and Emerson makes it to big leagues where the Mariners will put each of their natural shortstops on the field. All-Star infielder\/outfielder Brendan Donovan and utilityman Leo Rivas have started each Mariners game this season at third base and shortstop, respectively.<\/p>\n
When asked if he has talked with Crawford yet about Emerson, Wilson deflected.<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully we\u2019ll get a chance to see (Crawford) when he gets back from his rehab,” Wilson said. “But, like I said, we\u2019ve got a lot of focus on what\u2019s going on here, and we\u2019ll continue to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum in Atlanta contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE (AP) \u2014 The Seattle Mariners have agreed to a $95 million, eight-year deal with top prospect Colt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,4492,83753,3294,1400,12493,620,4,9500,9501,9496,82611,9497,83366,619,65,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-655390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-brendan-donovan","10":"tag-colt-emerson-mariners","11":"tag-dan-wilson","12":"tag-j-p-crawford","13":"tag-leo-rivas","14":"tag-mariners","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","17":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","18":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","19":"tag-product-31999-ap-online-baseball-news","20":"tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","21":"tag-product-40820-ap-washington-state-sports-only","22":"tag-seattle","23":"tag-seattle-mariners","24":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116326316410511722","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}