{"id":495962,"date":"2026-02-24T09:02:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T09:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/495962\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T09:02:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T09:02:18","slug":"mariners-declined-to-trade-cole-young-in-marte-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/495962\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariners Declined To Trade Cole Young In Marte Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Among players who were not traded this offseason, few found themselves in more rumors than Ketel Marte<\/a>. Arizona general manager Mike Hazen maintained throughout the winter that a trade was unlikely and said last month that talks never got close<\/a> to a deal. Nevertheless, the D-Backs took calls from various teams who had interest in their star second baseman.<\/p>\n

The Mariners were among the clubs that checked in as they pursued a high-impact infielder. Seattle surely had some interest in Marte, who began his career in the organization before being traded to Arizona over the 2016-17 offseason. Adam Jude of The Seattle Times<\/a> reports that conversations about bringing Marte back to the Pacific Northwest didn\u2019t progress far. According to Jude, that\u2019s at least in part because the M\u2019s balked at including second-year infielder\u00a0Cole Young<\/a> in a deal.<\/p>\n

That aligns with a December report from Jude\u2019s Seattle Times colleague, Ryan Divish, that the Mariners were reluctant<\/a> to trade off their major league roster. The M\u2019s wound up landing their preferred target,\u00a0Brendan Donovan<\/a>, in a three-team trade with the Cardinals and Rays. It required them to part with one big leaguer, third baseman Ben Williamson<\/a>. Williamson was a secondary piece in that deal, which was headlined by Double-A pitching prospect\u00a0Jurrangelo Cijntje<\/a>. A deal built around Young would have subtracted a higher-upside player than Williamson from the MLB team.<\/p>\n

Donovan is a more versatile defensive player than Marte. He\u2019s expected to kick over to third base to begin the season. That\u2019ll open the path for Young to win the second base job. The 22-year-old struggled as a rookie, batting .211\/.302\/.305 with four home runs across 257 plate appearances. He showed an advanced plate approach but didn\u2019t hit the ball hard enough consistently to do damage.<\/p>\n

Young lost playing time down the stretch and was left off the playoff rosters. Jorge Polanco<\/a> was the starting second baseman in October, while the M\u2019s felt Leo Rivas<\/a> provided a better contact-oriented infielder off the bench.<\/p>\n

Jude\u2019s reporting suggests the Mariners haven\u2019t lost any faith in Young\u2019s upside. The former first-round pick was an excellent hitter at every minor league stop. He\u2019d posted a .277\/.392\/.461 line with more walks than strikeouts over 54 Triple-A games. Young still didn\u2019t put up huge home run tallies, but he hit the ball harder with more consistent gap power against minor league pitching. Although he has exhausted his prospect eligibility, he remains one of the organization\u2019s most promising young players. He\u2019s under club control for six full seasons and would be a borderline candidate for Super Two eligibility over the 2027-28 offseason if he sticks on the MLB roster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Among players who were not traded this offseason, few found themselves in more rumors than Ketel Marte. Arizona…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,38652,462,82],"class_list":["post-495962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cole-young","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}