Mariners Should Go With Logan Evans While George Kirby Recovers
“We got a lot more than we banked on on draft day,” Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said of pitching prospect Logan Evans during a January 2024 interview with Locked On Mariners.
The Mariners had taken Evans in the 12th round of the 2023 MLB Draft out of Pittsburgh, just a handful of weeks after the righty wrapped up his final season in college with an abysmal 5.88 ERA. With the help of Seattle’s pitching programs, however, Evans went from just another minor-league body to appointment viewing in less than a year’s time. His stuff went from good to “unbelievable,” as Dipoto described it, with Seattle’s in-house pitching models registering it as some of the best in the world.
Evans went on to spend the entirety of his first full season of professional baseball with the Mariners’ Double-A affiliate in Arkansas, where he posted a 3.20 ERA with a 3.83 FIP, a 21.9 percent strikeout rate, and a 9.4 percent walk rate in 32 appearances. That includes 10 games as a reliever — an experiment the Mariners ran in hopes of getting Evans to the major-league level in 2024, but later deemed unfruitful for both the pitcher and team, thus creating an awkward stop-and-start period for the 23-year old who then had to ramp back up as a starter in the middle of the year.
With pitching out of the bullpen seemingly not an option for him, Evans finds himself in a tough spot within a Mariners organization that boasts arguably the best rotation in the majors with five well above-average starting pitchers. But an opportunity has come knocking, as George Kirby is expected to begin the regular season on the injured list after being shut down from throwing due to right shoulder inflammation, though Mariners general manager Justin Hollander believes Kirby will not have to miss a significant amount of time despite the nature of the injury. Therefore, this may be a short-lived chance for Evans and one he’s not alone in competing for, nor even the favorite to earn.
Instead, Emerson Hancock is the presumed man to get the nod. But while he carries the pedigree of a former top-10 draft choice out of Georgia, injuries spanning the last year of his collegiate career and well into his time as a pro have severely hampered his abilities.
Hancock served as the Mariners’ primary emergency sixth starter in 2024, and although the team went 7-5 in his 12 starts, he qualified in the 12th percentile or lower in several statistical categories, including a fourth-percentile placement in hard-hit rate and third- and second-percentile placements in expected batting average against and expected earned run average, respectively, per Baseball Savant. His stuff is mostly average to below-average across the board, save for a changeup that finished in the 69th percentile in offspeed run value with a 23.9 percent whiff rate and a meager .185 batting average against. But a changeup can only be as good as a fastball can take it, and both of Hancock’s fastballs were torched to the tune of hard-hit rates north of 50 percent.
Meanwhile in his latest spring appearance versus the Dodgers, Evans lit up Thomas Nestico’s highly respected pitching data model. Out of 80, his curveball graded at a 75, his slider a 74, his sinker a 62, and his cutter a 61. Piggybacking Hancock, Evans surrendered one earned run on three hits to a Los Angeles lineup that was absent the likes of Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani but still featured several dangerous hitters such as Teoscar Hernández and Michael Conforto, striking out three and walking none in three innings of work.
Logan Evans looked excellent today as he flashed his full arsenal against the Dodgers
Evans caught a lot of steam in prospect rankings last summer and he will look to do the same this season by leaning on his elite breaking balls and wide array of pitches pic.twitter.com/Mpq61mzSC3— Thomas Nestico (@TJStats) March 8, 2025
In his two other innings of spring action, however, Evans was knocked around for eight earned runs on as many hits and a pair of walks. But if we’re working off of spring numbers — and we shouldn’t — then Hancock hasn’t fared that much better, giving up six earned runs on nine hits and two free passes in 5.2 innings.
Given his experience, Hancock likely provides the Mariners with a higher floor in his starts. However, the difference between Hancock’s and Evans’ floors is much smaller than the gap between their ceilings, where Evans holds a clear advantage. Evans simply has more tools at his disposal than Hancock, who essentially has one path to getting hitters out and surviving a multi-inning appearance, while Evans has several and therefore should be able to adapt on the fly more easily.
The start of the regular season is the time for teams to gather information on what they have in tow. The Mariners are fully aware by now of what Hancock brings to the table, which is true No. 5 pitcher production at his best, and that’s fine for what their situation is. But Evans could offer more — potentially much more — and the opportunity has presented itself to the Mariners to find that out.
They should take it.
