Cole Young: Up-And-Coming Dynasty Player

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another installment of Up-and-Coming Dynasty Players.

As the baseball season heads into August, now is the time to really assess your team and its needs. If you are a team at the bottom of the standings, you obviously have a lot of needs. Now is the perfect time to look ahead to next season and beyond and try to snag some young up-and-coming dynasty players.

One of those players is Cole Young of the Seattle Mariners. His stats don’t jump off the page, but he is proving himself to be one of the better fantasy second basemen out there. And right now, he is ripe for the taking as he is rostered in only 12% of Yahoo leagues and 11% of ESPN Leagues.

Let’s take a look at Young and why he is an up-and-coming dynasty player.

The Stats

Cole Young isn’t a player who has been sneaking up on fantasy players – or at least he shouldn’t be. He was drafted with the 21st overall pick in the 2022 draft and first appeared in the top 100 prospects rankings in 2023. By 2025, he was ranked between 49th and 56th by MLB, Baseball Prospectus, and Baseball America.

He came out of the gates quickly during his professional debut as he tore up Rookie and Class A. He continued to perform well during his next three seasons in the minors before being promoted to Seattle last year. But Young struggled in his 77 games with the Mariners last year, casting some doubt about how good he will be. But he has thrown those doubts aside and is establishing himself as a solid fantasy second baseman.

The Tools

• Power

Coming out of high school, Cole Young did not get a high grade for his power potential, and for much of his pro career he proved they were right. Before this season, his previous high in home runs was 11 back in 2023 at Class A and High A. But this season Young has done a much better job of making solid contact, leading to a career-high 13 homers with two months left in the season.

During his 77-game stint with the Mariners last year, Young had an xSLG of .355, AEV of 87.6 mph, and a hard hit% of 31.1%. This season, those numbers are at .425, 88.6 mph, and 38.6%. And his squared up% has jumped from 24.8% to 27.1%, which ranks in the 69th percentile. I don’t think he is going to be a huge power hitter, but he should be able to reach 20 homers per season – a solid number for a second baseman.

• Hit

The hit tool is why Young was drafted so high, and it is what will keep him in the majors. He has a simple approach at the plate and doesn’t overswing, allowing him to make consistent contact. So far this year, he has a 19% whiff%, ranking in the 79th percentile, and his strikeout% ranks in the 73rd percentile.

He still tends to chase too many pitches, as his 31% chase rate ranks in the 43rd percentile. As he plays more, I expect him to cut down on that chase rate, which will only help improve his average and OBP.

• Speed

This is an area where Young could do better. He has decent speed as his sprint speed of 27.9 ranks in the 64th percentile, and he stole 23 and 22 bases in back-to-back minor league seasons. But last season between Triple-A and the majors he stole only five bases, and so far this year he has swiped three while being thrown out four times.

The Results

• The Positive

After an ugly 77-game debut last year, Young is proving he belongs in the majors. He has had his ups and downs this season, but since the All-Star break he is slashing .304/.360/.478 with two homers and six RBI in 12 games. For a bigger sample size, Young has had only one bad month this season, and that was in May when he slashed .196/.273/.289.

But he rebounded in June by hitting five homers and driving in 12 while slashing .295/.333/.457. While July is not quite over, the month of May is the only month in which Young has slashed lower than .250/.302/.420.

Cole Young has shown above average bat-to-ball skills for most of the year, carrying a 17% strikeout rate and 7% walk rate into August. And over the last two months, he has a strikeout rate of only 12%.

• The Negative

Right now Young, a left-handed hitter, is much better against right-handed hitters. Against righties, he is slashing .263/.324/.430 with a 7% walk rate and 16% strikeout rate. Against lefties, the slash line falls to .240/.293/.339 with a 5% walk rate and a 20% strikeout rate. For him to jump to another level and become one of the better hitting second baseman he is going to have to improve against lefties or make a massive jump in production against righties to make up for the pedestrian showing against left-handed pitchers so far.

• The End Result

Right now Cole Young is an average hitter, at least when compared to all other major league hitters. The MLB average slash line is .244/.319/.403, and Young is sitting at .256/.315/.402. But when compared to other second basemen, Young is in the top half when it comes to hitting. He ranks 11th in runs scored, 8th in home runs, 6th in RBI, and 8th, 11th, 10th, and 12th in average, OBP, SLG, and OPS.

His 162-game pace is 74 runs scored, 20 homers, 74 RBI and six steals. Compare that to Travis Bazzana, who has a 162-game pace of 75-19-71-31 season with a .244/.340/.399 slash line. Outside of the steals, where Bazzana has a huge advantage, the two players are pretty equal. If you have Bazzana on your team, you are not likely to trade him unless you get a really nice offer. So other than the steals, Young compares well to Bazzana.

The same can be said when comparing Young to another young second baseman in JJ Wetherholt (162-game average of .251/.348/.388 107-24-63-17). Young has an OPS+ of 107, and Wetherholt’s is 109. Bazzana sits at 108. Right now I would rank Wetherholt and Bazzana ahead of Young, but the gap between all three is not a very big one. At the end of the day, I would be happy to have Young on my team and be a second baseman to anchor that position for years.

Thank You

Thanks for reading, and come back again next week.