Cole Young’s name belongs in the Gold Glove conversation now, and that alone says plenty about how far the Mariners second baseman has come in a year.
Young is a finalist at second base, with Chase Meidroth of the Chicago White Sox and Michael Massey of the Kansas City Royals also in the mix. The case for Young is easy to make on one number: he led all American League second basemen with +16 Defensive Runs Saved. On that front, he looks every bit like a deserving finalist.
The competition, though, is real. Meidroth finished at +9 in Outs Above Average and Massey at +11, while Young’s OAA number came in at -5 for the 2026 season. Gold Gloves are decided with 75 percent of the vote coming from MLB managers, coaches and players, plus 25 percent from the SABR Defensive Index, so Mariners fans are left hoping the voters lean the same way the DRS numbers do.
Even getting to this point is a big step for Young, 23. His rookie season in 2025 was much shakier on defense, as he posted +1 DRS and -9 OAA across 621.0 innings.
Range was part of the problem, and four errors didn’t help. This year, he cleaned things up in a major way, making only six errors despite more than doubling his innings.
And while the metrics don’t line up perfectly, anyone who watched him all season had good reason to see real progress. The gap between DRS and OAA tells you the fielding public still has some disagreement about how to value his range, but the eye test clearly backed up the idea that he was a different defender in 2026.
At the plate, the story is more complicated. Young was worth 4.4 rWAR, which left him just 0.1 behind Meidroth for the AL lead among second basemen. That is strong territory for a young player, and it reinforces how useful he already is to Seattle.
Still, the bat has not made the same jump the glove did. In 2025, he was bad.
In 2026, he was more solid than loud. Seventeen home runs play, but a 99 OPS+ leaves room for a lot more.
He struck out at a healthy 17.1 percent clip, but his contact quality numbers stayed below average, including a 5.1 barrel percentage that sat in the 23rd percentile.
There was at least some forward movement there, too. After Julio Rodríguez pushed him to improve following the disappointment of the 2025 ALCS, Young arrived at spring training bigger and stronger. The results showed up in pieces: his average exit velocity rose by 0.7 mph, and his hard-hit rate climbed by 6.4 percentage points.
If that trend keeps going, Young’s profile changes fast. Another step that gets him into the 20-25 home run range with an OPS+ above 100 would push him out of the “promising” bucket and into something much bigger.
Right now, he already looks like one of the Mariners’ better players. From here, the ceiling starts to look much higher.
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Young is among three finalists at second base, alongside Chase Meidroth and Michael Massey, and the honor puts him in position for another notable milestone before the offseason fully settles in. The winners will be announced on Nov. 1, leaving Mariners fans with one more reason to keep Youngs name front and center as the clubs future starts to come into focus. [Read more 🡒]