On Saturday, Seattle Mariners left-hander Kade Anderson made his professional debut, tossing one inning in a 7-1 loss against the San Diego Padres at the Peoria Sports Complex. He was charged with two earned runs and struck out three.

Ranked as the No. 21 prospect in the sport by MLB.com, Anderson was drafted No. 3 overall in last year's draft out of LSU. As I've said before on the 'Refuse to Lose' podcast, the development of Anderson and Ryan Sloan (No. 33) will be integral to the Mariners and will help dictate what they do with Logan Gilbert, Luis Castillo and George Kirby.

Each pitcher is scheduled to be a free agent after the 2027 or 2028 seasons. Will the Mariners extend any of them or will they trade them? Could they let them walk in free agency based on Anderson and Sloan's ability to step into the rotation?

We spoke about how they impact things on the latest podcast with ESPN MLB Insider Buster Olney, who offered an interesting comparison for how the M's will handle things:

"Yeah, and look, I do think that when we look at how the Mariners are going to handle this pitching, I think you just look at the Atlanta Braves as being a model, right? They're not a super team financially in terms of where the payroll is. They're not where the Dodgers or the Mets or the Yankees are. And what Alex Anthopoulos, their general manager has done is basically said, 'you know what, I'm not going to pay sticker price. I'm not going to pay top free agent dollars.'

So Freddie Freeman, they moved on from him and they traded for Matt Olson and got him at a team-friendly deal. They let Dansby Swanson go because they didn't want to pay market value. They let Max Fried go. And you know that they tended to just focus on being able to sign guys at a contract that would be favorable at some point to the team. That's what's happened with Cal Raleigh, that's what happened with Julio Rodriguez. So I think, I mean my, and I haven't asked about this and where they stand, but generally speaking, I don't see the Mariners as a franchise who are going to pay sticker price for a guy who's either on the verge of free agency or in free agency.

So it absolutely will inform their decisions, you know. what they do with Logan Gilbert as it gets closer to that point, what they do with George Kirby. And I think it's part of the reason why when they had the trade talks for guys like Brendan Donovan and Ketel Marte, we know this, they clung to their best pitchers because those guys have to be the lifeblood for this team, not only in terms of their performance on the field, but also to help them shape their payrolls and to have some cheaper options in their rotation."

The Braves won the World Series in 2021 with both Swanson and Freeman on the roster, and they have been good since they left, but they haven't won the title again, which is what the Mariners are hoping to do in 2026.

Remember to join our MARINERS on ROUNDTABLE community, which is FREE! You can post your own thoughts, in text or video form, and you can engage with our Roundtable staff, as well as other Mariners fans. If prompted to download the Roundtable APP, that's free too!