Mariners draft third baseman Ace Reese at No. 24 overall in 2026 MLB draft

SEATTLE – The Mariners selected Mississippi State third baseman Ace Reese with the No. 24 overall pick in the 2026 MLB draft on Saturday.

Pundits projected the Mariners to take a college pitcher in the first round, as they have done the previous two years, but they instead chose the 6-foot-4 21-year-old third baseman who played the past two seasons at Mississippi State University.

“I was super blessed. I’ve never been to Seattle, so I’m pretty pumped to get out there and see that, I’ve heard it’s beautiful,” Reese said. “It was an awesome experience, everything I’ve dreamed of.”

“We’re extremely excited to get a player of Ace Reese’s caliber,” Mariners scouting director Scott Hunter said. “What we feel is one of the best pure college power bats in this draft. I mean, he’s got a track record of success.”

Reese, who was ranked by MLB.com as the draft’s No. 18 prospect, hit .336 this past season for the Bulldogs and led the team with 24 home runs while adding 23 doubles, 73 runs and 74 RBI and slugging .721. Reese started all 62 games as a junior, as the Bulldogs swept their NCAA regional in Starkville, Mississippi, before ending their season with a loss in the super regionals to the University of Georgia.

“I love to win,” Reese said. “And seeing the team that (Mississippi State) put together and seeing how we did, I think that’s what kind of brought out that real competitiveness of just wanting to get after and win every day. That’s what kind of brings out the emotion in the big moments. Hitting a home run in midweek is cool, but when you hit a home run in the bottom eighth of a super regional to take the lead, that’s when this starts to come out.”

In the super regionals on June 7, Reese hit a solo home run against Georgia in the bottom of the seventh inning that Hunter joked “is still going.” That home run sparked a four-run comeback that nearly won the game for Mississippi State, though the team ultimately lost.

ESPN and MLB.com had projected Reese to be selected before the Mariners’ pick, and the team pounced on the opportunity created by his slight fall.

“When he started slipping, we made some phone calls, and to say we were fortunate, sometimes better to be lucky than good because it really thinned out pretty quick this year where we had a lot of different ideas of ‘Who could we cut deals with, where can we move money, who is the next best option if one of those guys don’t get there,’ and to be able to take Ace was kind of an easy decision for us,” Hunter said.

Reese spent his freshman year at the University of Houston before transferring to Mississippi State for his sophomore season in 2025. He earned the SEC Newcomer of the Year award and was named to the All-SEC First Team.

“The information that comes back from our analysts show that he’s probably one of the top three hitters in the country, and it profiles as a guy that’s going to go out and have success right away,” Hunter said. “I don’t want to ever put a timetable on a player, but to do the things he was doing in the SEC, which is a totally different animal of baseball these days for college sports, it’s really impressive.”

Reese’s batting average slipped a bit from .347 his first season at Mississippi State to .336 this year, which Hunter attributed to a change in hitting coaching and philosophy at the school.

“It was the old University of Virginia college staff that went to Mississippi State, and they had their their way of doing things, and I think Ace, about a month into the season, went in and said, ‘This is really hard for me. I need to go back to my old routines and my old feel,’” Hunter said. “And then he really saw some things start really taking off for him, especially late in the season.”

Reese’s first name is Ace because his father had a feeling he’d be a star pitcher, according to the Mississippi Clarion Ledger. He grew up in Texas and went to high school in Canton about 80 miles outside of Arlington where the Rangers play. Reese grew up a fan and named Corey Seager as his favorite player growing up. As a freshman at the University of Houston he went to about 10 Astros games, but now is “a Mariners fan forever.”

The Mariners identified Reese as a team-first player and “kind of intense when you talk to him,” Hunter said. The team sees him as a powerful presence both on the field and in the clubhouse.

“We did the FaceTime call real quick, he’s all smiles, he’s with his family. I think he’s probably just as relieved as we are because I think a lot of the kids today thought they were going in certain areas of the draft, and then they don’t,” Hunter said. “But to see him as happy and relieved, and with a smile on his face, made me really excited because he wasn’t disappointed. He was still excited to get going, and was really appreciative of the opportunity.”

• Mariners take outfielder with No. 65 pick in second round: The Mariners used their second-round pick to select Jake Brown, a 6-foot-2 outfielder from Louisiana State University. Brown, MLB Pipeline’s No. 59 prospect, played with Kade Anderson, the Mariners’ No. 3 overall pick last year, for the first two years of his college career.

Brown was drafted by the Rangers in the 16th round of the 2023 MLB draft. He slashed .309/.404/.642 in his junior season at LSU and hit 16 home runs in 42 games played. Hunter said that Anderson, Brown’s friend, said the Mariners should “take him if you want a good human that can play.”

“Moving money around was very difficult this year with so many teams with such big signing bonus (pools). We tried in a couple areas to be aggressive, but it really didn’t work out,” Hunter said. “But as Jerry (Dipoto) told me when I first took this job, he says every draft you just think it’s like a three-one count. If it’s there, swing. If it’s not, don’t. And we stayed the course with that.”

• Mariners select pitcher with No. 101 in third round: The Mariners picked right-handed pitcher Nathan Taylor from the University of Cincinnati with the No. 101 overall pick in the third round. Taylor was ranked as MLB Pipeline’s No. 215 draft prospect.

Taylor, 6-foot-5, had an ERA of 3.60 in his junior season and set Cincinnati’s single-season strikeout record with 115. MLB Pipeline grades his slider as his best pitch, and he had the second-most strikeouts with that pitch in all of NCAA Division I last season with 80.

Taylor is Cincinnati’s all-time wins leader (22) and is third all-time in strikeouts (276). He was named to Perfect Game’s All-America third team.

“It was kind of a weird draft in so many ways, but for us, being prepared to make good decisions was key this year, and we stayed the course,” Hunter said. “And I think we fell into some really good players that are really going to help us moving forward here, but other than that, it’s an interesting day to go back in that room and re-rack for day two because it’s a little thin right now, so we’re going to have to get creative.”

• Mariners end Day 1 with another third baseman at No. 129: The Mariners finished the first day of their draft by selecting third baseman Trevor Lucas from UNC Wilmington. Lucas, 6-foot, was not ranked by MLB Pipeline.

He transferred to Wilmington from a junior college, Gaston, after his freshman year. Lucas slashed .312/.429/.556 this season, improving from his sophomore season in all aspects of hitting. Hunter said that the Mariners like Lucas’ versatility and that their scout in the area described him as “Ben Williamson-lite.”

“(He) makes good swing decisions, makes a ton of contact. We do believe he’s a plus defender at third base, and there’s some hope that he might be able to move around the field a little bit. And then talking to our (player development) group, they believe they can add a little more bat speed and a little more impact just by some of the programs we will put them through,” Hunter said. “Those things you have to take chances on certain guys, but the underlying foundation of controlling the zone, playing good defense, being versatile, especially in this year’s draft, those guys are at a premium right now.”