> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Relievers, Utility, or Surprise Outfielder? Six Potential Seattle Targets in MLB Rule 5 Draft
- URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/relievers-utility-surprise-outfielder-six-potential-seattle-mariners-targets-mlb-rule-5-draft/
- Published: 2025-12-01T22:47:43.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-08T05:57:09.000Z
- Author: Callaghan Bluechel
- Tags: Analysis, Mariners, 2025 MLB Rule 5 Draft, Peyton Pallette, Yohendrick Piñango, RJ Petit, Cameron Cauley, Alimber Santa, Harrison Cohen

MLB’s Rule 5 Draft is an opportunity for teams to draft players from other organizations into their 40-man rosters. Players become eligible for the Rule 5 draft after having spent multiple years in a team’s minor league system without being added to the 40-man roster. However, getting a player in the Rule 5 Draft requires a high level of investment into and confidence in that player. They must be added to the team’s 40-man roster and, as long as they are on that roster, they must be kept on the active roster for the entire following year.

Many players throughout MLB became eligible for the 2025 Rule 5 draft on the Nov. 19 deadline for adding players to teams’ 40-man rosters, but some are going to be more attractive to MLB teams than others. For the Mariners, who have 38 spots filled on their 40-man roster, some of these players could fill out a role or two on the team - or at the very least be traded for someone the M’s are looking for.

### 1\. 24-year-old RHP Peyton Pallette from the White Sox organization. 

If the Mariners want to use the Rule 5 draft to help fill out the bullpen, they might want to look at a guy like Peyton Pallette. He has a four-pitch arsenal of a four-seamer, curveball, changeup, and slider, with the curve and change performing the best in 2025\. Over 43 ⅓ innings for the Triple-A Charlotte Knights, Pallette had a 4.36 ERA, 1.200 WHIP, and 3.57 FIP while striking out 54 batters and walking 20\. In the offense-heavy environment of the Triple-A International League - where pitchers had a 4.76 ERA and 1.430 WHIP - all of these numbers were better than average.

When it comes to pure stuff, Pallette’s curveball is his best pitch, with high average spin rates, a 31.4 percent whiff rate, 24 percent hard hit rate, and a .171/.261/.336 opposing slash line. His fading changeup had an even better 50.8 percent whiff rate and 13.3 percent hard hit rate alongside a similarly strong .174/.200/.478 opposing slash line. While Pallette’s slider also kept batters off the board and generated a 52.9 percent whiff rate, opposing hitters also managed to hit it hard 36.4 percent of the time.

But more than half the time Pallette threw the ball in 2025, it was a four-seamer. Despite a plus grade on his heater from scouts and an average 95.1 miles per hour of velocity, International League hitters had a .257/.396/.473 (132 OPS+) against it in 2025\. Although his fastball has a solid 14.2 inches of armside run on average, Pallette has had issues keeping it out of the heart of the plate, and will have to manage that tendency in order to become an MLB-ready reliever.

### 2\. 23-year-old OF Yohendrick Piñango from the Blue Jays organization.

Although Piñango’s .235/.335/.379 slash line and 91 OPS+ in 84 games with the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons don’t pop out as someone who’s ready for the majors, there are a whole lot of things about his game that tell the keen observer that Piñango is someone to keep an eye on for the future.

Despite his .379 slugging percentage and .144 isolated power, Piñango hit the ball harder than most in Triple-A, with a 91.6 mile per hour exit velocity and a 98th percentile 115.4 mile per hour maximum exit velocity over his time with the Bisons. His 12.6 percent walk rate and 19.1 percent strikeout rate are better than 72 percent and 71 percent, respectively, of other Triple-A players, and he seldom fails to make contact when he swings at a ball in the strike zone. Despite coming into Triple-A with a scouting grade of average hitting and above average power (and a .224 isolated power in Double-A), it seems to be his contact that blossomed over the course of his time with the Bisons.

Still, there are reasons for his below average production in Triple-A. Against fastballs, sinkers, and cutters, Piñango put up a .308/.444/.458 slash line, but against everything else, he instead slashed .185/.249/.324\. Triple-A contains a lot of weak fastballs, and if he continues to struggle against everything else going into the majors, pitchers will find it trivial to put him away time after time. 

It would be a big bet for the M’s - a team with title aspirations for 2026 - to put Piñango on their major league roster, but if they are going to be looking at the Rule 5 draft for hitters at all, Piñango might be the one to pique their interest.

### 3\. 26-year-old RHP RJ Petit from the Tigers organization. 

One of the more complete players of those eligible for the Rule 5 draft, Petit logged a 2.74 ERA, 1.261 WHIP, and 3.19 FIP over 23 innings for the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens, also in the International League. Although he has a four-pitch arsenal consisting of a four-seamer, sinker, slider, and changeup, there are lingering questions about the sinker and change.

Like many across baseball, Petit’s strongest pitch is his slider. His is of a slower variety with a 41.7 percent whiff rate, and it held batters to a .171/.216/.286 slash line, 11.8 percent hard hit rate, and 77 mile per hour average exit velocity. Both fastballs also proved promising, as his four-seamer had a 16.7 percent hard hit rate and a .158/.333/.211 slash line against while his sinker got grounders at a 50 percent clip, but hitters’ .304/.385/.522 slash (141 OPS+) against the sinker is a bad sign about what can happen if he misplaces it.

Petit’s other somewhat questionable pitch in 2025 was his changeup, which faced a .375/.444/.500 slash line (153 OPS+) in Triple-A, being used almost exclusively against lefties. Prospect Savant’s version of the Stuff+ metric (psStuff+) likes the pitch, giving it a 105, and a .429 BABIP indicates that hitters got lucky when they made contact. However, either of these indicators are diminished by the fact he only threw 38 total changeups in Triple-A, not much of a sample size to draw indications from. 

In any case, fastball-slider guys can very well provide for their bullpens if both of those pitches are good enough, and Petit’s floor appears to be that of a back-end bullpen guy. The Mariners, however, are on the hunt for relievers who can deliver in big moments, and getting Petit in the Rule 5 draft would signal they have serious hopes for him.

### 4\. 22-year-old utility man Cameron Cauley from the Rangers organization.

Here we see our first Double-A player on the list, and although the teams making Rule 5 draft moves will prioritize guys with Triple-A experience, the Mariners might want to take a look at Cauley. 

With Dylan Moore’s long summer slump and subsequent designation for assignment from the team in 2025, the Mariners no longer have a main utility man. Cauley, scouted with an above-average arm and plus fielding, can play both middle infield and outfield, and projects to be a solid defensive utility man.

Cauley’s best ability, however, is his plus-plus speed, though there are decision-making concerns for him on the basepaths. In 113 games for the Double-A Frisco RoughRiders in 2025, Cauley stole 28 bases in 35 attempts, right on the knife-edge of positive impact in terms of success rate. 

With the bat, Cauley performed well in the Texas League, slashing .253/.325/.773 (118 OPS+) with 26 doubles, seven triples, and 18 home runs. He had a 9.6 percent walk rate and 24.7 percent walk rate over 490 plate appearances, and that relatively high strikeout rate (alongside a propensity to swing and miss at pitches in the zone) is one of the biggest concerns in his profile. Scouts ranked his hit tool as below average and his power tool as fringe-average, and although his production indicates development in both aspects of hitting, he still needs to make more consistent contact to truly outperform those assessments.

All that in mind, while the Mariners should consider taking Cauley in the major league phase of the Rule 5 draft regardless, a better fit might be to take him in the minor league phase of the draft, which would add him to the Triple-A roster without restrictions for where the team could place him over the season.

### 5\. 22-year-old RHP Alimber Santa from the Astros organization.

One might not think of Sugar Land, Texas as a source for winter gifts, but despite a 6.92 ERA and 2.077 WHIP in 13 innings with the Triple-A Space Cowboys in 2025, there’s much of Santa’s game that should draw interest around the league.

Santa delivers the ball almost straight down the top chimney with a 52.3-degree average arm angle and has a six-pitch arsenal consisting of a four-seamer, two-seamer, cutter, changeup, slider, and curveball. Despite his high arm angle, Santa’s pitches have much more horizontal movement to them than vertical movement, with his four-seamer (averaging 95.1 miles per hour, but with the ability to touch 99 miles per hour) and two-seamer (averaging 93.8 miles per hour) being separated mostly by armside run and not by sink. The best pitches in Santa’s arsenal are his slider and curveball, which both have high spin rates, lots of gloveside movement, and 41.9 percent and 36.4 percent whiff rates, respectively. 

Striking out 28.4 percent of all batters faced and keeping batters at low exit velocities with similarly absent hard hit and barrel rates, Santa clearly has a whole lot of upside. So why did Houston leave him off their 40-man roster? For one, they already had a full 40-man, but Santa had quite a bad habit of gifting the other team free passes, with a 23.9 percent walk rate, one of the worst in Triple-A. This walk rate produced a strikingly bizarre .220/.426/.260 slash line for opposing batters, and his 5.20 FIP (still better than average in the PCL) was dragged upwards by walks and walks alone. 

Despite his titanic struggles with walks, Santa clearly has an MLB future ahead of him. His highest walk rates have tended to come when he first arrives at a new level, as he did with the Space Cowboys in 2025, but once he settles in, he begins to control the ball better. However, for the Mariners or any other team to pick him up in the Rule 5 draft, they will be making a big bet that he can transition to the majors well and mostly leave his walks in the minors.

### 6\. 26-year-old RHP Harrison Cohen from the Yankees organization.

Sporting a 1.57 ERA, 1.081 WHIP, and 3.46 FIP in 28 ⅔ innings for the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders in 2025, Cohen proved himself very near MLB readiness and will likely be picked up by a team looking for bullpen help in 2026\. 

Cohen’s four-pitch mix is based around a four-seamer, cutter, and changeup, but includes the occasional slider. His fastball, only averaging 93.2 miles per hour, was hit relatively well by International League batters, who slashed .279/.385/.333 against it with just an 18.9 percent whiff rate, but his cutter and changeup were his main out-pitches.

Triple-A opponents slashed .146/.286/.146 against Cohen’s changeup and .100/.200/.133 against his cutter. The cutter in particular had a 48.8 percent whiff rate, 17.6 percent hard hit rate, and 83.1 mile per hour average exit velocity, while his fading changeup had a 33.8 percent whiff rate, 25 percent hard hit rate, and 79 mile an hour average exit velocity. Combined with his high 40.9-degree arm angle, Cohen’s two best pitches were able to miss bats both inside and outside of the zone, and when hitters did make contact, they didn’t hit the ball well. 

As with Santa, Cohen’s biggest issue is walks. He walked 14.8 percent of batters he faced with the RailRiders in 2025, most often with the slider and four-seamer. Cohen currently projects as a middle reliever, but if he is able to work on his control, he could become the kind of high leverage guy the M’s need in their bullpen.

### What overall strategy will the Mariners pursue in the Rule 5 draft?

While each of these six players could fit inside the Mariners’ active roster in 2026 if they make their necessary developments, some are more clear fits with a team like Seattle. The team is looking to their top prospect talent to fill out the rest of the lineup, so someone with limited versatility like Piñango would be more of a surprise for Seattle than a utility guy like Cauley. However, the main thing such a draft can be used for - and something Seattle needs for the upcoming season - is bullpen depth. Even if players like Cohen or Petit don’t play very well in the 2026 season, they could still be used for cleanup duty on an MLB squad, and like many relievers, there’s always a chance for a breakout. While the Mariners shouldn’t rely on the Rule 5 draft to produce an elite reliever, I would expect them to make a stab at somebody in the bullpen pile once Dec. 10 rolls around.