Mariners call up former Frog Colt Emerson
Published 9:53 am Monday, May 18, 2026
Already playing without American League MVP runner-up Cal Raleigh (right oblique) and facing the possibility of an extended absence for infielder Brendan Donovan, the Seattle Mariners are calling up top prospect Colt Emerson, the club announced Sunday.
Emerson, a former Everett AquaSox star, went 0-for-2 with a walk in his debut, scoring a run and hitting to flyouts in Seattle’s 8-3 loss to the San Diego Padres.
Donovan (groin) was placed on the 10-day IL, retroactive to May 16, as the club’s corresponding move.
Emerson, who topped Keith Law’s preseason ranking of Seattle’s top 20 prospects, is also ranked as The Athletic’s No. 4 overall prospect. Two of the three prospects ahead of him, Konnor Griffin and Kevin McGonigle, have already made their debuts for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Detroit Tigers, respectively.
The 20-year-old, who did not break camp with the big league club, signed an eight-year, $95 million contract extension in March — the largest in history for any prospect yet to make his MLB debut. Emerson’s extension topped Jackson Chourio’s eight-year, $82 million deal with the Milwaukee Brewers, one he inked before becoming the youngest player to record a 20-homer, 20-steal season in MLB history.
By comparison, Emerson is unlikely to make the same kind of immediate impact for the Mariners.
Through 38 games for Triple-A Tacoma, Emerson posted a .255/.347/.469 line, with seven home runs and eight doubles. He’s struck out 46 times in 145 at-bats, which is 44 percent of the entire strikeout total (105) that he posted across three levels and 130 games in 2025. Emerson was dealing with a wrist injury early in the season but is healthy now. He struggled with swing decisions in the early part of the Triple-A season and has been especially vulnerable to offspeed pitches. Though Emerson’s production has improved recently, he’s been chasing pitches outside the zone more in May than he did in April.
After the Mariners selected Emerson with the No. 22 pick in the 2023 MLB Draft out of John Glenn High School in Concord, Ohio, the left-handed hitter rocketed through Seattle’s system. He finished 2024 at the High A level in Everett, and by the time 2025 came to a close, he was already at Triple A, making his major-league debut a matter of time.
The Mariners fell to four games under .500 and two games behind the Athletics in the AL West entering Monday’s home series opener against the Chicago White Sox. Seattle does possess the best run differential in its division (plus-6) and is one of just five clubs in the AL with a positive mark on the year.
Keith Law of The Athletic and Aaron Coe of The Herald contributed to this report
