Here comes Colt Emerson

It’s good to try to win.

via the talented and hardworking folks behind @Mariners

The entire point is to win baseball games. That’s everything. That’s the goal. That’s why anyone does any of this.

So it’s a little odd when, after all the the machinations that go into picking up the smallest slivers of fractions of wins, teams don’t bring that same mentality to the grind of the regular season.

Teams will, quite often, be worse on purpose.

The Seattle Mariners, with supposed championship aspirations, started Leo Rivas at third base every day for a month. Bless his heart but he’s hitting .133/.259/.173 for a 39 wRC+, good for 253rd out of 258 players with at least 100 plate appearances inn 2026.

That had to end and it does today the Mariners calling up Colt Emerson, their best prospect.

Is he rushed? Is this a bit of a desperate move for the Mariners? Do I care at all about either of those things? No I do not.

Why call Colt up now? Because Brendan Donovan is hurt and Emerson is better than Leo Rivas.

Why not call up someone like Brock Rodden and let Colt develop some more in Tacoma? Because Colt Emerson is better than Brock Rodden.

The entire point is to win baseball games and Colt Emerson helps the Mariners win baseball games. They wouldn’t be paying him $9 million this year if he didn’t.

On the topic of “rushing” prospects, I’m going to pull up a blurb that I used last year, one from Jeff Sullivan during his USS Mariner days. The domain unfortunately expired but I’ll link to the URL anyway in case it comes back.

As for the confidence issue, if you have a player whose development might be stunted by experiencing a period of low confidence, that’s bound to come up eventually, whether he’s rushed or whether he’s taken care of cautiously. If these players exist, at some point they’ll slump, and when they slump, they’ll have bigger problems. You can’t leave a player in the minors for so long that he’s just immediately ready for the majors, no problem. There will be challenges, unavoidably.

I think our understanding of “rushed” is probably mistaken. I think the minor leagues, certainly, are important. You can never be fully prepared for the majors without having seen the majors, but you can be more prepared, and the more prepared you are, the smoother the adjustment. But I think adjustments can be made in the majors, and if not the minors remain an open option, and while I’m not closed off to the idea that moving a guy quickly can destroy his career, I’d really like to see some compelling evidence. Some careers are just destined to end up destroyed. I think, probably, there are guys who would be rushed, guys who shouldn’t be, but I don’t think those guys get rushed by their organizations. I think the players who get rushed, according to our definition, are the players who have been judged by their teams to be ready to meet the challenge.

Colt Emerson has a good chance to end up being the franchise cornerstone many inside and outside the building envision. He could also be a bust. Or he could be somewhere in the middle.

It will not be determined by the timing of this promotion.

When Mike Trout was first called up by the Angels, filling in for an injured Peter Bourjos, he hit .163/.213/.279 and was sent back to Double-A after only a couple weeks. He came up again a few weeks after that and finished the season with a not-awful 87 wRC+ over 40 games—buuuut hitting .146/.180/.188 with 17 strikeouts and only two walks across his final 50 PAs of 2011.

He posted 20.2 fWAR over the next two seasons.

This stuff happens—or even sometimes doesn’t—and when it does, it doesn’t ruin a player’s career. Alex Rodríguez was awful across his first two stints in the Majors and, with some help, he turned out fine.

There’s the part where, had they not called ARod up to help the ‘94 and ‘95 teams, he would’ve been on the 2001 club—but with Emerson’s contract situation resolved, starting the service time clock isn’t an issue.

Colt Emerson’s going to be in Seattle for a long time. His time at shortstop, however, isn’t starting yet.

From MLB.com’s Daniel Kramer:

Like I said, teams will be worse on purpose. It happens.

Colt Emerson is a better defensive shortstop than J.P. Crawford. The longest-tenured Mariner ranks last in the Majors by Outs Above Average at the shortstop position.

An average defensive shortstop, a term that’d likely undersell Emerson, would be an enormous upgrade over Crawford. With Cole Young’s significant improvement manning the keystone, a Colt/Cole double play combination would turn a team weakness into a strength.

But that isn’t happening. For…reasons.

Were it up to me, I’d slide J.P. over to third, a position that despite his relatively weak arm, is better-suited to his step-and-a-dive skillset.

It is not up to me.

On the back of all this, you have the continued unavailability of Brendan Donovan, the Mariners’ biggest offseason acquisition.

It’s a good anecdote on why so many of the Mariners’ additions go bust or something close to it. When you add non-star players, there are more non-star outcomes in play.

Donovan’s cleared the 3.0 fWAR threshold only once in his career and when you get a sub-50th percentile outcome on a player like that, he ends up not being the type of player you want as the signature acquisition before the most-anticipated season in franchise history.

Throw in a couple positions where you’re counting on platoons and that’s a big chunk of the lineup where you’re sure not to have stars and open up the possibility for performances far, far short of that.

With Emerson up, it’s one more spot in the lineup where the Mariners could have a star.

It probably won’t happen immediately. There will be struggles because there always are.

But the Mariners are better today than they were yesterday.

It’s good to get better. It’s good to try to win.

Go M’s.