The Mariners are in agreement with first-round pick Jurrangelo Cijntje on a deal, pending a physical, reports Daniel Kramer of MLB.com. According to Kramer, the Mississippi State product will receive the full $4.8809MM slot value of the 15th pick. Seattle also reportedly agreed to an overslot deal with second-rounder Ryan Sloan last night.
Perhaps the most fascinating player in this year’s draft, Cijntje is a switch pitcher. A native of the Netherlands and one-time Little League World Series participant with Curacao, Cijntje is a natural lefty but throws much harder from the right side. Scouting reports credit him with a plus slider and mid-upper 90s velocity as a righty. Cijntje sits in the low-90s with a sweepy slider as a lefty, limiting his work there to specific matchups. He didn’t pitch left-handed against every lefty hitter and worked almost exclusively from the right side late in his draft season.
After posting an 8.10 ERA over 14 appearances as a freshman, Cijntje broke through with an excellent showing as a draft-eligible sophomore. He turned in a 3.67 earned run average through 90 2/3 innings. He fanned nearly 30% of batters faced with a solid 7.9% walk rate — a huge step forward after he’d walked more than 14% of opponents during his first college season.
Cijntje said at the draft that he hopes to continue developing from both sides. Kramer writes that the Mariners intend to give him that opportunity. There’s a good chance Cijntje surpasses former MLB reliever Pat Venditte as the most successful switch-pitcher in memory. Keith Law of the Athletic wrote before the draft that the 21-year-old had the upside of a #2 starter. FanGraphs wrote that Cijntje looks like a back-end starter as a righty in addition to his matchup work from the left side.
Law slotted Cijntje as the #15 prospect in the class, exactly matching his draft slot. Baseball America slotted him 24th, while FanGraphs put him 34th. The Mariners have had plenty of success with the college pitching demographic in recent years, snagging George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Bryan Woo and Bryce Miller from those ranks. Cijntje was the third pitcher off the board this season.
Let’s gooooooo. If he can even reach loogy level as a lefty and 4th starter as a righty that’d be an intriguing because the constant platoon advantage
You do know that the LOOGY has basically been eliminated by the 3 batter rule right?
Even though the literal LOOGY no longer exists, the archetype is still present.
I assume that when Kyle mentioned LOOGY, he meant as a starter.
And I agree 100%. There are some lefties that are pure platoon players.
A guy like Marsh, for example, has a career .804/.557, and I assume there are worse split guys out there. The fact that JC can pitch lefty to these guys might be enough to keep some of them benched.
Better yet, my RS have a slew of lefties with poor splits. JC might operate frequently as a lefty against them.
I spit at the loogy rule. Ptooey.
Don’t you mean Hawk tuah???
If I remember right switch pitchers don’t technically always have the platoon advantage because a rule over a decade ago was added that said that switch pitchers can’t change arms during an inning (which means the pitcher can’t change to lefty to face a lefty bat after starting the inning right handed)
Actually disregard this comment my memory was not correct on the venditte rule
I believe the rule is a pitcher has to what hand they’re pitching woth before the hitter approaches the plate- to prevent delays and issues when a switch pitcher is facing a switch hitter
If it’s switch pitcher vs. switch hitter they should play rock/paper/scissors and the winner gets to decide from which arm the pitcher has to throw. There I solved it.
Ahh, no. The rule is he has to declare which arm he will pitch with for each batter. This is because the first time Venditte faced a switch hitter in the minors, both of them kept switching sides.
No, it’s per AB, not per inning.
Surprised he got the full slot.
Me too, and I think this should’ve been a bigger part of the discussion. They went overslot on the #5 by ~$1.36M. This means they need to make up that $1.36M on their other draft picks. I assume that means they threw away a couple of other picks to make up for it.
As of now, this kid is vastly overrated at 15 in my opinion, but a very interesting raw talent. Not being a M’s fan, I root for the kid and good luck to him. If he finds himself in a big league uniform, I hope it’s with a team other than the Mariners.
You aren’t just an m’s fan, you’re an m’s hater if you don’t want him pitching in Seattle
Is your favorite team someone in the same division as the mariners? Astro fan? Ranger?
As an M’s fan, I wanted Trey Yesavage but Jurrangelo is definitely the archetype pitcher the M’s like. They love lower arm slot throwers that offer deception and a love of horizontal movement.
Also, it’s hard to argue the M’s might be the best organization in developing young pitching for the past 3-5 years. Cijntje will most likely develop as a harder throwing Stroman, while plug and playing the left side-where he reminds me of a former Mariner, Justus Sheffield.
There is zero way a single fan can say a player drafted just days ago is overrated or underrated at this point.
The ONLY reason redstich is claiming he’s “vastly overrated” is because of the Baseball America and FanGraphs rankings- certainly not because of his own personal evaluation.
RedStitch: When you consider the success of this current Mariners FO in targeting, researching, drafting and developing Pitching-
The only thing that matters is how this M’s Org rates this 1st rd pick.
There are not many Org’s who have had as much success helping these young Pitchers find the best version of themselves. 4 of their 5 SP’s from their Rotation are M’s Draft Picks. How many teams can say that?
is because of the Baseball America and FanGraphs rankings-
========================
I agree. A better post would be to note that JC was ranked #34 by FG and leave it at that.
Greg Harris could throw both sides, if remember right his curve was as good both sides and threw low 90’s. used a 6 finger glove w/no large pocket. boston never let him go both ways the years he was with them, but seems someone finally did later few times.
There was a guy for maybe Toronto and few other teams floated around the league several years ago who also used a 6 finger glove and regularly switch side pitched, but name escapes at the moment.
Yu Darvish fools around lefty in bullpen sessions. Looks exactly the same from other side, throws nice curve too. Goes back to his youth. If u saw em pitching lefty n didn’t know better u’d swear he was southpaw.
Ill help you out with the name that escapes you, even provide you with a link. Link should look familiar to you.
mlbtraderumors.com/2024/07/mariners-agree-to-deal-…
I don’t pay much attention to the draft so please forgive the stupid questions, but why would a team draft a certain player and then not sign that player? In other words, why is something like this even news? Isn’t it a given the team signs a player they have chosen so high ? (Unless they somehow get injured right after they’re chosen or something?) Thanks
It’s more about how much he signed for not if he signed at all. In this case I think it’s a bit surprising he got full slot money.
Some kids don’t take the money n turn pro right away after HS. They go to college to get education too fall back on in event of catastrophic injury or even go juco route to improve their draft stock n be eligible in yr instead of the 3 yrs u have to complete @4 yr college. Sometimes they can’t meet on money or kids medicals turn up red flag that undercuts that players value. A few guys have gone to independent league n then re-entered the draft the following yr after not signing yr before. Then there’s overslot offers to encourage kid to take the money even though he was set on goin to university. Mariners already signed #1 n #2 picks days after draft, both Ps n #2 is high schooler who got overslot money to forgoe higher education.
It’s mostly a nothing-burger, so long as they sign at some point.
Where it can get interesting, especially for Seattle, is how do they make up the money for over-slot draftees.
A lot of your early draft picks will sign. For the MLB draft, each team has a pool and an amount per pick that they’re allotted. There’s some rules around how they can distribute that money as well, but you can probably Google those.
So what may happen is a team might draft a player that they think they can sign for under the slot amount (think a college guy whose next steps has to be the majors or working a 9-5 for much less). This would then allow a team to draft a player who has other options (think a high school player who can go to college) later in the draft, but give them more money (overslot). If a team drafts that person earlier, they risk not signing them and I believe there’s some consequences for next year’s draft.
So while there are times when this would be interesting news (ie a first round pick signing for under slot like Nick Yorke for the Red Sox a few years ago, so they could draft Blaze Jordan later) this is largely not anything out of the ordinary. But the article does have some additional information on the guy.
This may be silly but why can’t he pitch twice a week? We haven’t seen a pitcher break 34 games started in a while. It would be way more exciting than switching between hitters.
Technically, it might be possible for a pitcher to throw all left one game and all right several days later.
But switching hands between hitters is the greatest advantage for a switch pitcher. It makes them tougher to match up against, particularly for teams with hitters with dramatic lefty/righty splits.
Dallas Braden discussed this on his podcast the other day. He said that it wouldn’t work because pitching a full SP workload taxes the entire body and not just the arm. Pitching on short rest, even if you’re using the other arm would still mean he’s not at full strength
Lemme guess: Not a Scott Boras client?
Definitely one of the most intriguing players we have ever seen taken in the draft.
What’s in the water down there on the campus of Wake Forest University? Two top 5s, another at 10 and then this Sloan cat heading there. IMO this is a prudent overslot cash investment not gamble. Looking forward to following Ryan’s MILB journey.
This brings up an interesting possibility. Let’s say his stuff from both sides becomes major league level. Could he potentially slot in as a 3 and 5 starter? One from each side? Or a right hand starter, left hand reliever? Total hypothetical but interesting.
Wouldn’t work. Pitchers tire out their legs as well. 5 days between starts isn’t an arbitrary number it’s the minimum time needed to recoup the entire body to pitch at 100%. Generally when you see a guy on 4 days rest they are less effective and can’t pitch as long. Your question asks can he pitch other handed on two days rest and the answer is no. His legs wouldn’t have the drive to be effective. Lefty out of the pen possibly but even then the ask is he pitch from his less dominant side. I can see a scenario mid game he’s using both hands but I don’t see a scenario where it adds extra appearances.
Yeah that makes sense. Just one of those thoughts ever since Ohtani has done what he has done.
This draft is typical of Dipoto. 20 rounds, 15 pitchers, 5 position players. We will never have an offense as long as Dipoto is GM. I don’t think he even knows what a good offensive player looks like.
You can never have enough pitching and the Mariners develop pitching as well as if not better than any other organization. Develop them and trade them for proven bats. How many bats should they draft when you play one per position over 3 or 4 farm teams? Rangers won the WS hitting like .220 against Arizona. Chicks dig the long ball but pitching wins rings.
Well that’s a silly end comment of course Jerry knows what a good offensive player looks like everyone sees Ohtani and Judge and knows what they look like. The issue is he can’t sign good offensive players cause look what happens when they get here. Polanco fell off the earth. I liked the Garver signing and that’s sucked so far. Haniger was better in SF but decent in his first stint. It’s very much a pitchers park and Dipoto is going to have to overpay bats to get them here. Why do you think he’s known as Trader Jerry? He understands the only way to get players here is to take away their choices lol
@marte What? The Mariners have 7 top 100 position player prospects according to one of the major evaluators. #2 Farm System in the league. They aren’t necessarily imminent, but they are coming. (Some will be used as trade chips at the deadline for somebody.)
Colt Emerson, Harry Ford, Cole Young, Lazaro Montes, Johnny Farmelo, Tai Peete, Tyler Locklear, Celestin Felnin, Aidan Smith
All hitting prospects. All but two drafted in the first 4 rounds (the other 2 were signed as international players). Most have appeared on at least 1 top 100 prospect list.
Thank you for terming him a “switch pitcher,” and not “amphibious.”