Former Mariners Minor Leaguer Allan Saathoff Says He’d Turn Down MLB Shot for Savannah Bananas

I had been talking with Allan Saathoff for nearly half an hour when I decided to give him a hypothetical.

Saathoff spent three seasons in the Seattle Mariners organization and reached Double-A, so I started with something relatively realistic.

What if the Tacoma Rainiers called him and said they had an opening in their starting rotation?

Would he leave the Savannah Bananas and return to affiliated baseball?

“I wouldn’t take it,” Saathoff said.

That surprised me enough that I immediately changed the question.

Forget Triple-A.

What if the Seattle Mariners called and told him they had a spot for him in the major leagues?

“I don’t—I wouldn’t take it,” he said.

Saathoff wasn't trying to make some grand statement about Major League Baseball.

In fact, his answer makes considerably more sense when you hear what happened to him during the years leading up to Banana Ball.

For most of his baseball life, reaching the majors was exactly what he wanted.

“Going into professional ball, minor league ball, I kind of idolized that,” Saathoff said. “I was chasing that. That’s all I wanted was to play pro ball.”

Then he actually experienced professional baseball.

Saathoff signed with the Mariners and spent three years in their minor-league system. He reached Double-A, but the life he had spent years pursuing was considerably more stressful once he was living it.

Players at that level aren't simply trying to perform every night. They are trying to develop while knowing that a roster move, promotion, demotion or release can alter their careers with very little warning.

Saathoff remembers that uncertainty as a constant part of the job.

“In the minor leagues, it’s like you never know when the organization is going to make moves and decide to cut you or decide to demote you or put you on the development list or something like that,” he said. “There’s always that fear in the minor leagues.”

Eventually, the move came for Saathoff.

The Mariners released him after three seasons, and his reaction wasn't to immediately find another organization or independent team.

He was ready to be finished with baseball.

“I thought I was done,” he said. “I was completely ready to hang it up, hang up the cleats and just move on with life.”

Then a former coach called.

A Savannah Bananas opportunity he nearly turned down

Saathoff said his former coach at Erskine College, Mark Crocco, told him Banana Ball was adding two new teams and suggested that he try out.

Crocco told him the players were treated well, the compensation was good and it could be a tremendous opportunity.

Saathoff wasn't interested.

“I was kind of down,” he said. “I was like, ‘No, I’m not going to do this. I’m out on it. I don’t want to do this dancing stuff.’”

That's particularly funny in retrospect.

The dancing that made Saathoff reluctant to even attend a tryout is now part of a job he says he wouldn't leave for another shot at the major leagues.

His decision to try out wasn't casual.

Saathoff is a Christian and speaks openly about the role his faith plays in his life. He talked with his family and his then-fiancée, sought advice from people he trusted, prayed and said he fasted for three days while considering what he should do.

“I felt like God told me, ‘You should try out. You should at least try out,’” Saathoff said.

So he did.

He loved the tryout, but there was one more interesting piece of timing ahead.

The Banana Ball draft was scheduled for the day before Saathoff's wedding.

“This is a huge weekend,” he remembers thinking. “The draft happens. I’m getting married the next day. This could go great or it could go really bad.”

It went pretty well.

Saathoff was drafted, married his wife the following day and celebrated both events surrounded by friends and family.

He told me something about that weekend that probably would have sounded impossible to him when he first entered professional baseball.

“It was honestly way more exciting than getting signed for minor-league ball,” he said.

That wasn't because signing a professional baseball contract had meant less to him at the time.

The difference was where Saathoff was in his life and who was around him to experience it.

His family and friends were there, he was getting married, and suddenly a baseball career he thought had ended had taken a completely unexpected turn.

What Saathoff didn't know yet was how much that turn would change what he wanted from baseball.

The stress didn't disappear. It changed.

Saathoff is careful not to portray Banana Ball as effortless.

The players travel, rehearse, perform, interact extensively with fans and still have to play competitive baseball.

For a pitcher such as Saathoff, who readily admits dancing isn't exactly his specialty, some of the performance side has required an adjustment.

But he says the stress bears little resemblance to what he felt in the minor leagues.

“There’s stress with anything, but the stress level is so much lower,” he said.

In Banana Ball, Saathoff doesn't spend each day wondering whether a bad outing could precede a phone call telling him to pack his things.

He signed for the season and knows where he's going to be.

That has allowed him to think differently about failure on the mound.

He brought up a recent outing in which he had been hit hard and allowed runs. His competitive instincts haven't disappeared; he didn't enjoy it.

But he has learned to separate a poor pitching performance from the larger reason he believes he's there.

“When you really look at it, when you zoom out, we’re part of something greater,” Saathoff said. “We have the opportunity to impact fans in a positive way. And who cares if I give up a home run or I give up five runs? At the end of the day, we’re not here just to shove and do great. We’re here to impact fans and we’re here to serve fans and serve each other.”

That distinction gets to the heart of why Saathoff answered my hypothetical the way he did.

He still wants to pitch well.

Spend a few minutes talking pitching with him and that's obvious.

He talks about development, mental skills, coaching, routines and competing like someone who has spent most of his life learning the craft.

What changed is what he expects baseball to give him in return.

Why he would say no to the Mariners

When I pushed Saathoff to explain why he might turn down an actual major-league opportunity, he didn't talk about the rules of Banana Ball, the crowds or even the money.

He talked about purpose.

“The platform we have here, what we’re trying to accomplish, I value that more than just making the big leagues,” he said.

Saathoff believes the pursuit of money and fame can become its own trap.

His Christian faith is central to the way he explains it, and he no longer views reaching the highest possible level of baseball as the thing that would necessarily make his life successful.

“I believe that there’s a lot more to life than just money and fame,” he said. “I think that spreading the good news of the Lord and spreading positivity, spreading just good vibes overall and just being there and being able to impact fans, having smaller interactions with fans every day, is so much more valuable than just playing in front of millions of people and making millions of dollars.”

It would be easy to dismiss that as something a player says while enjoying his first season in Banana Ball, except Saathoff and his wife have already made a fairly significant decision based on that belief.

They bought a house in Savannah.

Originally, they expected to spend much of the season apart. She was living in North Carolina and Saathoff had moved to Savannah for baseball.

A few months into the experience, their thinking changed.

“We kind of saw what was going on here and we loved it,” Saathoff said. “We decided to end up just buying a house in Savannah and selling out for this thing because we believe that this is where we’re called to be and this is where we belong.”

There is no long-term contract guaranteeing Saathoff a Banana Ball career.

He told me the players are on one-year deals. He hopes he'll be invited back and believes that if he continues embracing the organization's emphasis on serving fans and teammates, he'll have a good chance.

He and his wife decided to commit anyway.

Saathoff calls it “burning the ships”—removing the easy path backward and committing yourself to what comes next.

That brings us back to the Mariners.

When I first asked the question, I expected Saathoff to tell me he'd leave for the majors.

Why wouldn't he?

He had spent years trying to get there.

Instead, he said no.

And after listening to the next several minutes, his answer stopped sounding strange.

The Mariners represented the life Allan Saathoff once thought he wanted.

Getting released forced him to imagine a life without it.

Banana Ball unexpectedly gave him another version of baseball—one with less fear, considerably more direct connection with fans, a rapidly growing public platform and, at least for Saathoff, a stronger sense that the work means something beyond his pitching line.

He also isn't alone.

Saathoff told me he has discussed the same hypothetical with teammates and found others who feel similarly.

Now think about that.

“This is the place to be,” he said. “Being on the other side, chasing all that money and fame—no. This is the place to be.”

Then he put it even more simply.

“Banana Ball is the place to be.”

For a pitcher who once thought making the major leagues was the entire point, that's quite a change.

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