Mariners' Cole Young has remarkable case as 2nd-best hitter in MLB this season originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Cole Young sits right behind Mike Trout on an impressive MLB leaderboard.
And if you just use this one stat, the Seattle Mariners' young second baseman has been the second-best hitter in baseball this season.
Don't believe it? Well, here it is.
Young has the second-best Win Probability Added so far in the 2026 season behind just Trout.
WPA is a stat that doesn't just take into account a hitter's outcomes, but specifically what point in a game they happen in and how it impacts the chances of winning.
For example, a home run with your team leading 14-0 doesn't add essentially any win probability. The chances of winning are already too high.
A walk-off home run when trailing that turns a game into a win adds a ton of win probability.
MORE: This might be the weirdest way to get an inside-the-park HR
Every action has some amount of WPA, and Young has been second-best to Trout, with the leaderboard via MLB.com's Daniel Kramer:
That top-five is four of the very best hitters on the planet, with Young mixed in.
WPA certainly requires a game to break in a certain way to get a chance at accumulating it, but then a hitter has to deliver, too.
So far, Young has delivered for the Mariners, over and over. It's been key for a lineup that took a while to get rolling around him.
And for Young, it's huge. After a slow start to his MLB career prior to this season, he's found his stride and is looking like a long-term starter, with a knack for coming through when it really matters.
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