Mariners Logan Gilbert is 'not fair' after adding another wipeout offspeed pitch

Seattle’s rotation is already stacked with Bryan Woo, Luis Castillo, Emerson Hancock, George Kirby, and staff ace Logan Gilbert, but the 28-year-old right-hander may have just tilted the balance of power further in the Mariners’ favor. Despite an early-season 6.75 ERA across two starts—five runs in 5.1 innings against the Yankees and three more in 5.1 frames versus the Guardians—Gilbert is generating buzz for a new weapon that could soon render him “not fair,” as MLB.com’s David Adler put it.

The secret? A freshly minted changeup that joins a splitter already regarded as one of baseball’s nastiest out pitches. “Gilbert was filthy enough when he was just throwing a splitter,” Adler wrote. “Now the Mariners ace is throwing a changeup on top of that splitter? That’s not fair.”

Early data supports the hype. The changeup sits just under 85 mph and features 16 inches of horizontal movement, a dimension designed to play off the splitter’s sharp vertical drop. If hitters had grown accustomed to diving out of the way of Gilbert’s signature splitter, the new look could force them to cover both planes of movement, complicating timing and expanding the righty’s margin for error.

Results have yet to show in the box score, but Seattle sees the long-term upside. Pairing the changeup with a mid-90s fastball, a power slider, and the diving splitter would give Gilbert a four-pitch mix that can attack any quadrant of the zone. The Mariners believe that once command and sequencing click, their All-Star could vault into the sport’s top tier of starters.

For now, the pitch remains a work in progress. Gilbert has flashed the changeup in both outings but has not yet synchronized every element of his repertoire in a single start. When that cohesion arrives, opponents may find themselves echoing Adler’s assessment: facing Logan Gilbert could soon feel anything but fair.