Lookout Landing’s 2025 Prospect Rankings: #8 Felnin Celesten

Please just stay on the field

Welcome back, prospect gang. Today we’re tackling the tricky situation of young Felnin Celesten, shortstop extraordinaire. If you missed yesterday’s writeup of Ryan Sloan from John, click here. Otherwise, to catch up on all of our prospect articles, click here.

Felnin Celesten, one of the most highly touted international prospects in recent years, signed with the Mariners in January of 2023 for a hefty $4.7 million and set a franchise record for an international signing bonus in the process. Known for his immaculate glove, projectable frame, and smooth swing from both sides of the plate, Celesten was the consensus #2 prospect in the class and was touted as a potential superstar talent. Today, much of that pedigree remains, with most outlets (including us) still viewing him as an uber-talented shortstop with a sky high ceiling. In such a crowded system, however, Felnin lost a few tiebreakers and wound up at eighth in our preseason ranking, boiling down to his severe lack of on the field track record.

When Felnin has been on the field, it’s been nothing short of spectacular. Switch hitting as an 18 year old in the Complex League last season, Celesten managed an OPS of .999 through 144 plate appearances and was frequently the best player on the field by a wide margin. Celesten struck out less than 20% of the time, walked over 12% of the time, showed great slugging, and did it all while playing up the middle. Truly, there was very little to critique. Unfortunately, while sliding into a base, Celesten broke a bone in his hand/wrist area and missed the rest of the season. Coming off of missing the entire 2023 season with a hamstring injury, the 144 plate appearances of brilliance is all we’ve got to go off of after two years in the organization.

If you want a silver lining, Celesten’s injuries would fall into the category of “fine” injuries to have. Obviously no injury is actually good in any way, but if you’re going to be injured, a broken hand or hamstring strain are among the injuries I’d prefer to see as there’s far less long term impact on the body. What’s more concerning is the pattern of repeated injury we’re seeing occur, particularly from someone who’s still incredibly young. Obviously there’s some degree of luck to injury avoidance, but it doesn’t necessarily bode well to see these seemingly fluky injuries repeatedly pop up. It’s far from impending doom or anything of that nature, but it’s enough to give us pause when ranking him against a slurry of other talented minor leaguers.

As long as Celesten is in the system, it’s going to be tough to knock him out of the top ten assuming his performance is as expected. Talents like him don’t come around all that often, and especially not in Seattle. If he’s able to stay on the field all of this year, it’s not unreasonable to think Celesten could be the new organizational number one come next years rankings. It might sound crazy, but I cannot stress enough just how natural Celesten looks playing baseball. His defense is head and shoulders better than the other shortstops in the system presently, possessing an elegant flow that a Mariner infielder hasn’t had since Canó was patrolling second base. Frankly, the bat has more upside than just about anyone as well. There’s tremendous feel to hit and budding power all over the field. But until we actually see it perform on the field, upside is nothing but speculation in its purest form. There’s a world where Celesten gains the pedigree of the current prospect superstars found around the game, but until some games get played, we’re 144 plate appearances away from where we started. Please, baseball gods. Let the man play.