Colton Shaw proving to be strong fit in Mariners’ organization
Published 8:55 am Friday, July 31, 2026
EVERETT — Colton Shaw never thought he would be on this trajectory.
A two-way star at Plano East High School outside of Dallas, Shaw entered his first season at Yale in 2022 recruited primarily as a first baseman. His .676 OPS ranked sixth on the team among qualified batters, and he finished tied for third with four home runs. He even had the team’s longest hitting streak that season (13 games). Shaw still took the mound once a week, making 10 starts and throwing the third-most innings on the team (53 2/3), but his 7.21 ERA was the seventh-highest in the entire Ivy League.
One would expect Shaw to have shifted focus away from the mound in order to build his offensive skillset. Instead, four years later with the Everett AquaSox, the 23-year-old is arguably the best command pitcher in the entire Northwest League, and he has not picked up a bat competitively in over three years.
What happened?
“I really did love hitting. I thought it was a lot of fun,” Shaw told The Herald last week. “But as I kind of made my way up the ranks, I realized I was a better pitcher than hitter, so I had to make the switch.”
Shaw kept developing his arm following the 2022 season, making four relief appearances for New Britain of the Futures Collegiate League that summer. He racked up 12 strikeouts and four walks in eight total innings, and his sophomore season at Yale was practically a mirror image of the prior year: His pitching excelled, but his performance at the plate regressed.
His OPS dropped by over 100 points (.575), and he finished with a .192 batting average. Meanwhile on the mound, Shaw’s ERA dropped to 4.50, which ranked 10th in the Ivy League in 2023, and he threw 20 more strikeouts (59) than he did as a first-year while allowing the same number of walks (28). It was after that sophomore campaign that he decided to focus on pitching full-time.
Shaw gives Yale pitching coach Chris Wojick the most credit for his development. He entered college with more of an over-the-top arm slot, but Wojick believed he could take the next step by lowering it. If executed correctly, Shaw would be able to add more movement to his pitches that would keep hitters off balance.
“I kind of changed my arm slot to throw a little down, a little lower, and I’ve kind of been running with that ever since,” Shaw said. “(Wojick) definitely had a big impact on my time there, and yeah, I really started to fall in love with pitching with his help.”
After taking a small step forward in his junior season with a slightly improved ERA (4.26), WHIP (1.404) and strikeout total (70) from the year before, Shaw vaulted himself into a new stratosphere as a senior, which is when he fully implemented the adjustments Wojick suggested.
Shaw pitched the most innings in the Ivy League in 2025 (77 2/3), and he finished with the second-best ERA at 3.13. He struck out 80 batters (third most in the league) while walking just 24, and he held opposing batters to a .221 average. The Bulldogs won their first Ivy League regular-season title since 2018, and Shaw earned First Team All-Ivy honors.
While his velocity also took a jump compared to his previous three seasons, Shaw focused on improving from a technical standpoint rather than chasing speed. The biggest priority: Attacking the strike zone and avoiding walks.
“I think it was kind of junior or senior year of college, I really started prioritizing and really hating walking guys,” Shaw said. “I think it became a mindset that I really took pride in, is I’m going to make everyone earn their way on, and so that kind of carried over.”
When the Seattle Mariners selected Shaw in the seventh round of the 2025 MLB Draft, he landed in an organization that shared the same philosophy. He made three starts in Single-A at the tail end of the season, which allowed him to dip his toes in the water of professional baseball before the Mariners assigned him to Everett at the start of 2026.
Shaw is one of the main starting pitchers for the AquaSox this season, where he has a 6-4 record and 4.71 ERA as of July 31, but his most eye-popping stat is his 6.77 strikeout-to-walk ratio (K/BB), which measures how many strikeouts a pitcher records for each walk allowed.
Of the six qualified pitchers in the Northwest League, the closest behind him is Everett teammate Evan Truitt (2.91). If expanded to include every pitcher, Hillsboro’s Brian Curley has a 5.29 K/BB with 305 total batters faced compared to Shaw’s 334, while AquaSox and former Yale teammate Reid Easterly boasts a similarly impressive 6.22 K/BB on 200 batters faced.
The only pitchers with a higher rate than Shaw have faced 55 batters or fewer in the Northwest League this season, which gives the righty a strong argument for the best command pitcher in the league.
“That’s what Colton does best: He puts himself in good positions to finish hitters, get weak contact,” Everett pitching coach Bryan Pall said. “But like, if he has a bad outing, it really comes down to, ‘Was he managing the count in his favor?’ And he knows that’s a superpower of his, and he’s going to relentlessly attack every single hitter.”
Pall praised Shaw’s self-awareness when it comes to understanding who he is as a pitcher and the areas that he needs to work on, while Shaw praised Pall and the Mariners organization at large for providing a development plan that falls in line with his philosophy. Every Mariners affiliate — including Seattle itself — has the fewest walks allowed in its respective league as of July 30.
Everett pitchers have allowed 315 walks this season. The next-lowest in the Northwest League is Vancouver with 442. Only the Double-A Montgomery Biscuits (311) in the Southern League have fewer across all of the minor league teams excluding the Complex Leagues, which have played much fewer games this season.
“It was perfect that I came here,” Shaw said. “… I don’t really track a bunch of stats, but if there’s one I will look at, it’s K-to-walk (ratio) because I think that’s really important. How well can you punch guys out, and how well can you not give them free passes? So yeah, it’s definitely something I take a lot of pride in.”
Shaw also made sure to shout out the AquaSox catchers this season, including Luke Stevenson, who praised Shaw after his recent outing on July 24, a 5-3 loss to Eugene where he struck out five and walked one, but allowed a pair of home runs to Top 50 MLB prospect Jhonny Level.
“I thought he had really good command with all five of his pitches,” Stevenson said after the game. “All three fastballs, all off speeds. They got him with an 0-0 home run, they got him with a chopper that put in two runs, so I thought he threw really well and got a little unlucky in there.”
While Pall would agree that Shaw had a strong outing despite some of the raw numbers, Shaw himself finds it difficult to look past the final score in losses. He viewed that as the biggest adjustment transitioning from college baseball to the minors. While the AquaSox put effort into winning every game, the wins and losses are ultimately secondary to individual development. That dynamic on the field and in the clubhouse — seeing how different teammates go about their business to improve on a personal level — differed completely from a Yale program that focused on team success.
“The way he views failure is different from a lot of things, but he always uses it to fuel him and do better, and not try harder, but make the correct adjustments to get him back to where he needs to be,” Pall said. “… It comes from wanting to win for his team and put up a good outing, and put up zeroes. It more just comes from the competitive edge that he carries with himself every single day. It’s not that he’s knocking himself to strive for perfection, but he wants to win for himself and his teammates.”
Since Shaw already mastered his command in High-A, Pall will be working with him to consistently get all of his pitches in the zone earlier in counts, which is what the Mariners want from starting pitchers in particular.
While Shaw prioritizes every step of his development, he just couldn’t shake the mentality he built at Yale when asked about his main focus for the rest of the season. He couldn’t shake the mentality that turned him into the pitcher he is today.
“Trying to win ball games,” Shaw said. “I think we’re playing really good baseball right now. The guys are doing awesome, and (we’re) just trying to keep this momentum so we can make a playoff push. The only goals I had was make every start, and we’re just going to try and keep rolling with that, but we’re definitely trying to get some wins for the boys.”
