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.