One of the major pieces of the Seattle Mariners’ future has finally arrived with the promotion of top prospect Colt Emerson on Sunday.
It didn’t take Emerson long to make a strong impression in the Pacific Northwest. In just his second career game on Monday, the 20 year old collected his first hit – a three-run blast to right field that sent fans at T-Mobile Park into a frenzy.
There’s one way Mariners’ Colt Emerson is showing he’s ‘really special’ already
Emerson, ranked as a top-six prospect in all of baseball by multiple publications, is currently playing third base for the M’s, but he’ll eventually settle into a role as the shortstop, likely after this season when veteran J.P. Crawford becomes a free agent.
When Emerson makes that move, he’ll be playing alongside another former top prospect in second baseman Cole Young. With that duo set to potentially make up the middle of the Mariners’ infield for the long-term, ESPN’s Jeff Passan believes Seattle could have the best middle infield duo in baseball in the next two to three years.
Passan noted who Emerson and Young will be in competition with for the title when he joined Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk on Tuesday.
“You could look at Cincinnati with Elly De La Cruz and (Matt) McClain. Xavier Edwards and Otto Lopez in Miami are pretty good,” Passan said. “I’ll be curious to see, like, who gets paired with (shortstop) Kevin McGonigle (in Detroit) for example, or who locks down the second base job with (shortstop) Konnor Griffin (in Pittsburgh). Two more guys who, like Colt Emerson, signed really big contract extensions that are going to keep them with their teams around. But right now, I’d say that McClain and Elly are probably the standard there.”
De La Cruz, a switch-hitting, 24-year-old shortstop, earned All-Star nods the past two seasons, hitting more than 20 homers in both years. He also swiped 67 bases and finished eight in National League MVP voting in 2024. At 6 foot 6 with elite speed and power, De La Cruz is viewed as having one of the highest ceilings in baseball.
McClain, 26, had a strong rookie year in 2023, batting .290 with an .864 OPS and 16 homers in 89 games. His offensive numbers have dipped since missing the 2024 season with a shoulder injury. In 192 games since the start of 2025, he’s hitting .220 with a .654 OPS and 20 homers. But McClain has been a plus defender in all three of his big league seasons.
Emerson and Young are “a really good pair. I’m not sure that at the end of the day we’re going to see that potential ceiling that Elly De La Cruz has out of Colt Emerson, but we could be somewhere in the neighborhood,” Passan said. “And I think Cole Young frankly has a chance to be a better second baseman than Matt McClain. We might be looking at the best middle infield in baseball two or three years down the road. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable thing for the Mariners to dream on.”
Hear the full conversation at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Listen to Brock and Salk weekdays form 6-10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.
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