Mariners prospect rankings 2026: #20, 3B/1B Luis Suisbel

It’s time for our annual prospect write-ups looking over the Mariners system, voted on by our prospect team here at Lookout Landing (Max Ellingsen, John Trupin, and myself). Last week, we introduced our honorable mentions groups of both pitchers and position players who just fell outside of our top 20. Now we’ll be working through individual profiles of those 20, publishing two a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so check back then for the countdown.

Starting us out, Luis Suisbel lands on our list at #20, primarily through a strong push by me, hence why I am doing this writeup. Suisbel is a polarizing prospect, for those who even consider him a prospect. Part of this is tied to his boom-or-bust offensive profile, and part to his defensive value and whether or not an evaluator believes he can stick at third base. He’s also been a slow advancer through the Mariners system, needing to repeat levels before moving on. Understanding Suisbel’s developmental path, I think, helps explain why his progress up the ladder has been somewhat hesitant, and offers optimism on what he might be able to do in 2026.

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Signed out of Venezuela in July 2019, Suisbel is part of the generation of young ballplayers who had their developmental paths interrupted by COVID. Having not been brought to minor-league camp yet in March of 2020, Suisbel remained in Venezuela, lacking access to formal training facilities. “It was a really hard situation for everybody, for the world in general,” he told me this August in an interview conducted at Everett, partially translated by AquaSox bench coach Hecmart Nieves.

“During the COVID season I was just trying to get better so I’d be ready for the next season. I was trying to practice however I could. We had a few balls, some bats, and my father was helping me.“

Suisbel spent his age-18 and age-19 seasons in the DSL complex, having already lost a year-plus of development to the pandemic. While he doesn’t want to blame some of his early struggles on the COVID year, he’s realistic about the challenges posed by the loss of developmental time. “Baseball is hard. We have good and bad moments. With the COVID year, it was a slow process for us.”

As a Venezuelan prospect, Suisbel also faced different challenges than some of his fellow international signees. While not uniform across the island, the Dominican Republic generally offers more robust training academies and infrastructure for the business of baseball. Venezuela has been a trickier climate, both economically and politically. When COVID hit in March of 2020, some of the higher-level Venezuelan prospects—like former Mariners prospect and now Texas Ranger Luis Curvelo—opted to stay at the facility even with no formal training, working out alone in Peoria just to have access to the Mariners resources. That wasn’t an option for Suisbel, who hadn’t even played stateside yet at the time.

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“Being in Venezuela with COVID wasn’t ideal because I didn’t have the facilities to improve my skills,” he said. “It took until I traveled to the United States where I felt like I had everything that I needed and I could kind of take off.”

Finally after playing a pair of seasons in the DSL, Suisbel was intent to get stateside and prove himself as a ballplayer.

“I know early in my career, my first years, I didn’t have great numbers, but I know who I am and what my abilities are. When I saw my numbers in 2022 I thought about it and tried to make an adjustment that off-season, and then 2023 was a different story.”

In 2023, Suisbel started swinging for more damage, something that was easier to do thanks to a pro training regimen that helped him build more lean muscle and strength. He still struck out, a lot, but in his first season playing in the ACL and Low-A he hit twice as many home runs in about as many plate appearances as he did during his first two years in the DSL. Suisbel credits that to a change in his mentality after making the move from the DSL to stateside ball.

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“Before I was in the Dominican, living in the complex, everyone there is on the same level. But when I flew to America, and I was in the Arizona complex, it was different there. I had different teammates at different levels. I watched my friends, my countrymen like Curvelo who were in Low-A, High-A, move up, and that was my inspiration. I wanted to be right there with them, moving up.”

If seeing his fellow Venezuelan prospects move up lit a fire under Suisbel, it was nothing like the heady excitement of sharing a complex – and sometimes even a locker room – with the big league players. The proximity to big-leaguers and ability to wander over and watch a spring training game made everything feel much closer than they had back in the Mariners Boca Chica complex.

But despite this new vision, it continued to be a slow climb for Suisbel. He spent all of 2024 at Low-A with the Modesto Nuts, where his strikeout issues persisted, if somewhat less egregiously, and spent all of 2025 with Everett, destroying a career-high 23 homers but not showing much in the way of average. Suisbel has shown power, adopting a more uppercut stroke, but that’s caused him to become even more vulnerable to strikeouts, historically an issue in his game.

Still, three true outcomes are easier to tolerate when paired with some solid defense at the hot corner, and while he remains a ways from that, Suisbel has been steadily increasing his share of time at third base after playing most of his time at first earlier in the Mariners system. Part of what’s helped him step into the role is his experience playing winter ball for the Magallanes in the Venezuelan Winter League, where he’s been steadily handed the reins at third. It was enough of a turnaround that Mariners infield coach Perry Hill praised Suisbel among a group of infielders last spring training. Despite having a bigger frame, the 6’1” Suisbel shows good body control, able to center himself even on off-balance throws and remain mechanically clean, something for which Hill, the Mariners’ infield guru, praised Suisbel.