Mariners Moose Tracks, 2/3/17: Prospect Rankings, Yoelkis Cespedes, and Free Throw Dances

Happy Friday everyone! It’s the end of the work week and almost time for the weekend.

Yesterday, John Sickels at Minor League Ball released his list of the top 20 Mariners prospects for the 2017 season. Sickels always does an excellent job at profiling players and I always look forward to his posts.

In his mind, Tyler O’Neill and Kyle Lewis are right on the edge of being considered “elite.” It’s cool to hear that from an outside source for sure. It’s easy for us as Mariners fans to hype these players up, but it means a lot more when other evaluators see them as high-level talents too rather than merely as average future players.

His stance on Vogelbach is also interesting. He’s high on the young first baseman and considers him to be a “B-level” prospect. I always forget that Vogelbach carried that much hype with him. We’re all hoping for big things from the M’s first baseman.

Furthermore, Sickels’ piece just highlights how “meh” the team’s system is. The Mariners have a lot of guys that will likely end up as organizational depth in the future, but lacks top guys beyond O’Neill and Lewis. I still have hope that one or two of the others will turn into studs for the team.

Now, let’s see what else happened in the world of baseball.

In Mariners news...

• Leonys Martin is the latest player to admit getting hitting tips from Robbie Cano. Perhaps Cano has a future as a hitting coach after he retires?
• Ryan Divish wonders if this is finally Mike Zunino’s year. It felt like last year was going to be his breakout campaign, but his natural progression suggests he should be even better in 2017.
• More Felix!

• Jesus Sucre and Jonathan Aro have cleared waivers and will report to major league spring training.

Around the league...

• Will Jonathan Lucroy help separate the Rangers from the pack in the AL West? Travis Sawchik looks at the catcher’s potential impact for Texas.
• Keep an eye out for Yoelkis Cespedes, Yoenis’ younger brother who has been making waves in Cuba.
• Roy Halladay and Vladimir Guerrero headline the latest additions to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.
• Grant Brisbee assigns new homes to the few remaining free agents.
• Jeff Sullivan takes a look at the best and worst defenses in baseball. He notes that the M’s have improved their defense more than anyone else this winter.

Anders’ picks...

• This kid was really excited about hitting a free throw.

• Check out this crazy shot by a Chattanooga basketball player.