{"id":337875,"date":"2026-07-12T20:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T20:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/337875\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T20:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T20:39:08","slug":"florida-baseball-of-hayden-yost-goes-to-seattle-mariners-in-mlb-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/337875\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida baseball OF Hayden Yost goes to Seattle Mariners in MLB draft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>July 12, 2026, 3:37 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">The <a data-autotag=\"8a0be5f0-56a8-48ae-8940-419fdc10cf5d\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/baseball\/mlb\/teams\/seattle-mariners\/236\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Seattle Mariners<\/a> selected Florida right-hander Hayden Yost with the 162nd overall pick in the fifth round of the 2026 MLB draft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">At pick No. 162, Yost is set to receive a slot value of $429,100. He is the 236th Gator drafted all-time, the 121st draft selection under Kevin O&#8217;Sullivan. With Yost&#8217;s selection, Florida has produced five or more draft picks in each of the last four seasons and in 14 of 17 drafts since 2009.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Yost slashed .262\/.369\/.589 with a career-high .958 OPS as a junior this season. He found a late power surge, homering 10 times in 24 starts, becoming a lineup regular. He had three multi-homer games, hitting a pair against Georgia on April 12 and Oklahoma on May 3. He had Florida&#8217;s only three-homer game of the season against LSU on May 16.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">That power surge likely helped Yost&#8217;s draft stock, but he has plenty of tools valued by MLB scouts. He can play all three outfield positions with a career fielding percentage of .996, including back-to-back seasons with a perfect 1.000 over more than 200 opportunities. He has a good eye with a career strikeout rate of 17.8% and a walk rate of 11.8%, but he turned into a flyball hitter over his time at Florida, jumping from 45.8% groundballs to 57.5% flyballs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">In 2025, Yost made 44 starts in center field, 10 in right and one in left while slashing .259\/.380\/.392 at the plate. He flashed good speed and baserunning instincts with 14 stolen bases while only being caught twice.<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">As a freshman, Yost made 32 appearances and 14 starts for Florida. He slashed .284\/.400\/.358 over 67 at-bats. He missed the final two SEC series and postseason with a torn ACL, but he healed quickly and made a full recovery over the offseason.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"gnt_em_cp_cw_i\" data-g-r=\"lazy\" data-gl-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1783888748_887_73904848007-CWS-G3-2.jpeg\" data-gl- decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Follow us\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GatorsWire\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@GatorsWire<\/a>\u00a0on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/gatorswire.bsky.social\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bluesky<\/a>, and like our page on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/GatorsWire\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>\u00a0to follow ongoing coverage of <a data-autotag=\"13e400dd-2caf-4743-8f66-2d6e34ba4e99\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/sports\/college-sports\/sec\/florida\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Florida Gators<\/a> news, notes and opinions.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"July 12, 2026, 3:37 p.m. ET The Seattle Mariners selected Florida right-hander Hayden Yost with the 162nd overall&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31,28,30,29,113869,14113,14011,6203,67928,299,39,4814,14012,20521,138207,342,96,136904,4818,4821,300,34],"class_list":["post-337875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-accessfree","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-sourcegators-wire","tag-sstssportscollegegatorsbaseball","tag-sstsnbaseball","tag-tagbaseball","tag-tagcollege-baseball","tag-tagcollege-sports","tag-tagflorida","tag-tagflorida-gators","tag-tagflorida-gators-baseball","tag-tagmlb","tag-tagmlb-draft","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagseattle-mariners","tag-tagsec-conference-football","tag-tagsec-hub","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}