Mariners' Cole Young has remarkable case as 2nd-best hitter in MLB this season
This is pretty hard to believe.
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.