{"id":661509,"date":"2026-04-03T21:07:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T21:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661509\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T21:07:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T21:07:15","slug":"mariners-95m-colt-emerson-deal-could-have-a-hidden-cost-to-bullpen-depth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/661509\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariners&#8217; $95M Colt Emerson deal could have a hidden cost to bullpen depth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5l\">You can&#8217;t have 41 men on a 40-man roster, so somebody had to go after the Seattle Mariners inked shortstop prospect Colt Emerson to a $95 million contract on Tuesday. And that someone is Ryan Loutos.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5o\">The Mariners designated the right-handed reliever for assignment on Tuesday, and are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2026\/04\/mariners-designate-ryan-loutos-for-assignment.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">now requesting release waivers on him<\/a>. As noted by Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors, the Mariners can&#8217;t simply outright Loutos because he&#8217;s currently injured.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5r\">The question now is whether the Mariners will retain Loutos by signing him to a minor league deal, but he&#8217;s free to shop around if he wants. And one of the other 29 teams in MLB might just want him more than Seattle.<\/p>\n<p>Mariners will have less relief pitcher depth if Ryan Loutos departs the organization<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5x\">The Mariners first acquired Loutos back in November as a waiver claim from the Washington Nationals. At the time, <a href=\"https:\/\/sodomojo.com\/newest-mariners-pitcher-will-get-fans-hooked-on-his-fascinating-mlb-story-01k9p3xn3075\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">arguably the most interesting thing about him<\/a> was his background as an undrafted computer science major.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"60\">Then again, one could have been equally interested in what Loutos brought to the table as a pitcher. He pitched for three MLB clubs between 2024 and 2025 \u2014 including the Los Angeles Dodgers, so he has a World Series ring \u2014 and used a five-pitch mix headlined by a mid-90s fastball.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"63\">When Loutos was on the Mariners&#8217; 40-man roster, he was part of a bullpen depth chart that ran eight players deep underneath the eight who made the Opening Day roster. Yet between his release and Carlos Vargas&#8217; IL stint, that list is already down to six.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"66\">The relievers Seattle has used through seven games have posted a 2.70 ERA, but it hasn&#8217;t all been smooth sailing. Gabe Speier has a 7.71 ERA through three appearances, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.seattletimes.com\/sports\/mariners\/did-world-baseball-classic-lead-to-slow-starts-for-mariners-stars\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">might be feeling the effects of his involvement<\/a> with Team USA during the World Baseball Classic. Andr\u00e9s Mu\u00f1oz got ambushed by Chase DeLauter in his one and only appearance, in which his fastball was only around 97 mph.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"69\">All that said, the bullpen depth chart was the obvious target for a sacrifice as soon as the Mariners extended Emerson. And the Mariners might have already chosen the best possible &#8220;next man up&#8221; in Cole Wilcox, who has allowed just two hits and struck out four of the 11 batters he&#8217;s faced in place of the injured Vargas.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6c\">Whether it&#8217;s in the Mariners organization or somewhere else, the 27-year-old Loutos should catch on somewhere. And if pitching doesn&#8217;t work out for him, it&#8217;s nice to know that he can easily pursue a career in tech instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You can&#8217;t have 41 men on a 40-man roster, so somebody had to go after the Seattle Mariners&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2392],"tags":[5,620,4,619,65,3235],"class_list":{"0":"post-661509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-mariners","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mariners","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-mariners","13":"tag-seattlemariners"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116342819996848979","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661509","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=661509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}