The 2026 MLB Draft is full of these quiet little bets, and the Mariners just made one of the more interesting ones. Ninth round, pick 280, and instead of taking the slot value and moving on, Seattle handed Auburn right-hander Drew Whalen $250,000 — nearly $50,000 over the $202,700 slot number for that pick, according to Jim Callis.
Jim Callis broke down the signing bonus and the stuff that justified it.
9th-rder Drew Whalen signs w/@Mariners for $250k (slot 280 value = $202,700). @AuburnBaseball RHP, 11 IP this spring before having Tommy John surgery, low-80s changeup is best pitch, also has low-90s fastball that reaches 96 mph & mid-80s slider. @MLBDraft
Here's the catch: Whalen threw all of 11 innings this spring before Tommy John surgery ended his season. He'd transferred to Auburn after winning Conference USA Pitcher of the Year at Western Kentucky in 2025, when he struck out 90 batters over 81.2 innings as a sophomore. The move to the SEC was supposed to be his platform to boost his stock. Instead, his elbow blew out in relief work during opening weekend of conference play, and he wound up making just 6 appearances for the Tigers before going under the knife.
So why does a guy with 128.2 career college innings and a fresh surgical scar get paid like a much higher pick? The stuff. Whalen pairs a fastball that's been up to 96 mph with a low-80s changeup that scouts consider his best offering, plus a mid-80s slider. That's a three-pitch mix that reads like a starter's repertoire, and it's reportedly why the Mariners' front office pushed to get a deal done rather than let him test a return trip to college with NIL money on the table.
This is the trade-off that happens every draft with prep arms and Tommy John cases: teams either pay for what a guy has already done, or they pay for what the swing-and-miss stuff suggests he could still become once he's healthy. Whalen is squarely in the second bucket. He won't throw a competitive pitch as a pro until deep into his rehab timeline, but Seattle clearly views the ceiling — a starter with a mid-90s heater and a plus changeup — as worth financing now rather than letting another club roll the dice on him in a year.
It's a name nobody outside draft-nerd circles will remember by August, but it's exactly the kind of pick player-development departments love to point to a few years down the road. Mariners fans won't see Whalen on a mound in Seattle for a long while, if ever, but the front office just told you what they think a healthy version of this arm looks like — and they backed it up with real money.