Why now could be a good time for Mariners to call up Cole Young

Cole Young just continues to obliterate Triple-A pitching.

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The highly touted Seattle Mariners prospect has been on an absolute tear this month, batting a scorching .385 with five home runs, three triples, seven doubles and a 1.222 OPS over his past 20 games. That stretch that included a pair of massive homers – a 441-footer and a 458-footer – on back-to-back nights and a Pacific Coast League player of the week award.

COLE YOUNG! 458 FEET!!!

COLE YOUNG IS A *SINGLE* AWAY FROM THE CYCLE! pic.twitter.com/H3KpD8lglD

— Tacoma Rainiers (@RainiersLand) May 17, 2025

So, is it time for the M’s to call up Young?

When asked that question Monday on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk, Mike Salk acknowledged that the Mariners might want to see Young continue to find success in Triple-A for a bit longer. The 21-year-old second baseman has played just 50 career Triple-A games – all this season – and got off to a slow start over the first 30 of them.

However, Young is widely considered to be the Mariners’ most MLB-ready prospect. And as Salk mentioned, Seattle’s current situation might be an ideal time to make such a promotion. The first-place Mariners could certainly use some infield help, but they also still have the third-best record in the American League and wouldn’t be calling up Young out of desperation.

“In a lot of ways, now is sort of the time you could do something like this,” Salk said. “You’re not desperate. The team is not falling out of first place and you’re not in a desperate position right now. I hate the idea of bringing up any of these guys and putting the weight of the world on them to salvage a season that’s starting to slip away. That sounds awful, and I don’t want to do that to Cole Young.

“But you also don’t want to mess with a good thing when everything is going perfectly,” he added. “You don’t want to bring somebody up and take somebody out who’s hitting. Right now feels a little in between. And so I do think that of all of the times this question has been asked, yeah, if they brought up Cole Young today, I’d be like, cool, now seems like a pretty good time.”

Listen to the full Brock and Salk conversation at this link or in the audio player at the bottom of this story. Tune in to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

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