Outfielder Brennen Davis is with the Mariners on a minor league deal. As part of that deal, he has an assignment clause today, per Ryan Divish of The Seattle Times. If he triggers the clause, he will be offered up to all the teams in the leagues. If any club is willing to give him a roster spot, the Mariners would have to either add him to their own roster or send him away to another club that would. Divish notes that Davis also has an August 1st opt-out.
It seems like Davis has a decent chance of getting a roster spot in the coming days. He is crushing the ball with Triple-A Tacoma, currently sporting a .293/.404/.569 line. Even in the context of the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, that performance leads to a 145 wRC+, indicating Davis has been 45% better than league average. He has eight home runs in 151 plate appearances and is drawing walks at a strong 12.6% clip.
Those numbers will surely draw the attention of some clubs around the league but it doesn’t seem like the Mariners will let let him get away. “I don’t see a scenario where we don’t keep him in our organization,” general manager Justin Hollander said to Divish. “He’s a right-handed bat with power and there aren’t a ton of them available.”
The Mariners are surely not just making this call based on his 33-game sample this year. Many years ago, Davis was one of the top prospects in the sport. He was a second-round pick of the Cubs in 2018 and hit his way up to the top minor league level in 2021. Baseball America ranked him the #16 prospect in the league going into 2022.
Injuries derailed his progress from there. As Divish notes in his column, it was initially thought that Davis had a herniated disc in his back in 2022, but surgery found a cluster of blood vessels pushing against his sciatic nerve. Subsequent seasons saw him deal with a core muscle strain, a stress reaction in his back and a broken ankle. Around those injuries, he only played 229 minor league games in the four years from 2022 to 2025, producing a .215/.329/.404 line in that time.
The Cubs added Davis to their 40-man roster in November of 2022, to prevent him from being available in the Rule 5 draft. He never got called up to the majors, apart from a stint on the injured list in 2024. Davis got a few days of big league service from that but didn’t get to appear in a game. He was designated for assignment after that 2024 season and then non-tendered. He spent 2025 with the Yankees on a minor league deal while still recovering from ankle surgery in 2024. He returned but then missed more time due to a crash into an outfield wall, per Divish.
It’s been quite an odyssey but Davis now seems to finally be both healthy and performing up to his abilities. Based on his numbers and the comments from Hollander, it wouldn’t be surprising if he’s added to the 40-man soon. There may not be playing time available in Seattle immediately, as they have Julio Rodríguez, Randy Arozarena, Luke Raley, Dominic Canzone, Rob Refsnyder and Connor Joe in their outfield mix.
Davis burned two options while on the Cubs’ roster in 2023 and 2024 but still has one remaining. That means the Mariners could give him a 40-man spot and keep him in Tacoma for the time being, unless they want to bump someone else off the active roster.
Photo courtesy of Rick Scuteri, Imagn Images
