After a 2025 rookie season that left open a real question about his pace of growth, Cole Young has opened 2026 looking like the player the Mariners hoped he would be. At 22, he can make a case — after one month of baseball — that he has been the American League’s best second baseman.
The case begins with the glove. Young ranks first among all defenders in the early going at plus-10 Defensive Runs Saved, the measure Baseball Reference uses as its go-to for defensive quality. That is not just good for a second baseman; it is rare at the position. Only three second basemen posted a plus-10 DRS season in 2025, so Young’s start puts him in territory that usually belongs to a full-year outlier rather than a player still settling into a major league role.
His bat has been productive, if less overwhelming than the defensive numbers. Young carries a 111 OPS+ through the early going, enough to support the idea that he has not simply survived at the plate while his fielding carries him. He is hitting the ball at 87.9 mph on average, just shy of the 88.6 mph MLB norm, which helps explain why the offense looks solid rather than dominant. His walk and strikeout rates have also regressed relative to his rookie season in 2025, a reminder that the improvement is not linear and that some pieces of his game remain less settled than the box score suggests.
That is where the caution comes in. The Mariners would have had a problem if Young had stayed on the same learning curve he showed last year, and his early 2026 performance is why they can breathe easier now. But the defensive burst also carries the warning label that comes with any tiny sample: it can fade fast. The comparison hanging over him is the kind of early-season spike that once made Julio Rodríguez look like he had found a higher ceiling before the numbers cooled back toward earth.
For now, though, Young has done enough in one month to change the conversation around him. The 2026 Mariners no longer have to wonder whether their 22-year-old second baseman is merely holding his own. They can see a player who is already shaping a game at both ends of the field, and the next question is whether that level of play lasts once the season starts asking for more than a month at a time.
