Mariners' red line in Ketel Marte trade talks puts new spin on risky experiment

Remember all that buzz about the Seattle Mariners and Ketel Marte? It peaked around December, but fizzled out well before the Arizona Diamondbacks took the All-Star second baseman off the market in January.

Now we know this is all Cole Young's fault, at least to the extent that his talent has the Mariners convinced that he's the future at second base.

This is one of many takeaways from a Monday report by Adam Jude of The Seattle Times. In it, he cites sources who say that Marte talks with Arizona "never advanced," in part because the Mariners didn't want to include Young in a deal.

The optics here are… interesting, to say the least. The implication is that the Mariners could have actually made a trade for a three-time All-Star with 35.6 rWAR for his career, but didn't because they wanted to protect a guy who managed only 0.5 rWAR as a rookie in 2025.

If nothing else, this tells us that the organization isn't pulling anyone's leg with its messaging that it's high on Young.

Mariners' refusal to include Cole Young in a Ketel Marte trade is now set up to be a fateful decision

Young was a top-100 prospect just last year, and he's still only 22 years old. And while his rookie season didn't end well, he did show flashes of excellence for a long stretch during the summer.

Further, Young came into camp having clearly answered a challenge from Julio Rodríguez to up his game for 2026. This is the main takeaway from Jude's piece, which quotes Jerry Dipoto as calling Young "chiseled" after he cleaned up his diet and added strength during the winter.

On Monday, Young also showed off impressive footwork in starting a nifty double play against the Los Angeles Dodgers:

Even so, the Mariners aren't so high on Young that he's guaranteed the starting job at second base. He'll have to earn it, which will mean fending off Colt Emerson and otherwise convincing the Mariners that he's a better option at second than Brendan Donovan, who is currently slated to play third.

As much as anything, this may depend on how well Young adjusts to the fastball this spring. He just plain couldn't hit four-seamers, specifically, in 2025, and it became an easily exploitable problem that resulted in him losing his job.

The short of it is that Young is no more of a sure thing now than he was when the Mariners called him up for his MLB debut last May. The faith they have in him is still of the leaping variety.

If he rewards it, they'll have the last laugh. If not, a "could have had Ketel Marte" narrative could take hold and linger in Seattle for a long time.