Cole Young is one of the shining stars of Seattle’s system. Slotted in at no. 2 with a 50 FV grade when our Mariners Top Prospects list was published in mid-summer, the 21-year-old middle infielder is coming off a second full professional season during which he slashed .271/.369/.390 with nine home runs and a 119 wRC+ over 552 plate appearances with Double-A Arkansas. Displaying above-average contact skills — a selling point when he was drafted 21st overall out of Wexford, Pennsylvania’s North Allegheny High School in 2022 — he had a 15.8% strikeout rate to go with a 12.1% walk rate.
The extent to which he will hit for power as he continues to mature was on my mind when I spoke to him prior to an Arizona Fall League game this past weekend (Young has since been removed from the Peoria Javelinas roster; per a source, he was dealing with wrist discomfort, an issue dating back to the regular season). Back in July, Eric Longenhagen wrote that Young has “added considerable bulk to his frame” since entering pro ball, and noted that “changes he’s made to his swing have resulted in him trading some contact for power.”
Asked about our lead prospect analyst’s observations, Young said that he now weighs 200 pounds, up from 190 a year ago, and is “a lot stronger after going to lifting camp” over the offseason. He sees his ideal weight in the 195-200 pound range, allowing him to “still be athletic, but also be able to hit the ball hard.”
Whether there was an actual swing change is a matter of interpretation, and the same is largely true for his having traded some contact for power. In both cases, what Young did in the latter part of the season — this after Eric’s report — differed from the first handful of months.
“It wasn’t really a swing change, but rather more of a setup change,” explained Young, who takes his cuts from the left side. “I’ve never changed my swing, although I definitely raised my hands a little bit going into spring training. I thought if I raised my hands I could maybe get more rhythm in my swing, but toward the end of the year I found that it works better for me if my hands are a little bit lower, so I went back to my old self, which is hitting line drives, hitting balls the other way, and occasionally running into a ball for a homer. Being short and simple works best for me.”
He also provided an updated report on the infielder:
Young continues to project as an everyday middle infielder. His arm strength isn’t an ideal fit at shortstop, but he is otherwise a sound low-to-the-ground defender with plus actions and procedural acumen. It’s encouraging that Young has continued to make plus rates of contact even as he’s altered his swing a few times in pro ball, including this year against Double-A competition. The above screengrabs were clipped when Young’s leg kick was at its apex during each of these swings, and you can clearly see the difference in how his hands are setting up late in the season (the photo on the left) compared to during spring training (on the right). I’m not sure exactly when he made the change, but he was still using the older version during the Futures Game, so it was sometime after that. The downtick in Young’s 2024 offensive production compared to prior years has much more to do with the shift in hitting environment he experienced going from Everett to Arkansas than anything to do with his talent. He’s a balanced offensive player who should produce enough to be a regular despite lacking big power.
Young’s mention of short and simple, paired with his having lowered his hands, brought to mind something Edgar Martinez said when I talked hitting with him nearly a decade ago. Along with championing simple mechanics, the Mariners legend told me that he liked to have his hands close to where they were going to be firing from. I shared those thoughts with the young infielder.
“I think that’s a great point,” Young said upon hearing that. “It’s especially true when guys are throwing very hard; you’ve got to have very little movement. Lowering my hands back to where I could be nice and simple, and compact, helped me a lot.”
Which brings us back to the earlier part of the season. Was he actually trying to hit for more power? After initially claiming that wasn’t necessarily the case, he allowed that doing so had indeed been on his mind.
“At the beginning of the year, I kind of thought that I could hit for more power,” Young admitted. “But like I said, it didn’t work for me. I was hitting too many fly balls, so I went back to being myself, which is controlling the strike zone, making a lot of contact, and hitting line drives.”
Playing in a less-than-ideal hitting environment factored into his decision to go back to the style of hitting he’s most comfortable with.
“Something that helped me, honestly, was being in a pitcher-friendly park,” explained Young. “It helped me realize that I needed to get back to being myself and hitting line drives, because if I hit a fly ball, it was going to get caught. Hitting at our Double-A place, Dickey-Stephens Park, in Little Rock, made me a better hitter. Not really being able to hit for power made me hit more for average, and again, that’s when I’m at my best. I’m controlling the zone, going the other way, and hitting line drives.”
