NEW YORK -- Quick: which active Met leads the team in OPS?
No, it’s not Juan Soto, though it would be him if he were not on the injured list. It’s not Francisco Lindor. It’s not rookie sensation Carson Benge.
The answer is a player few believed would make the Mets’ Opening Day roster, let alone still be in the center of things come late August. But that’s where Jared Young finds himself 134 games into his first full run as an everyday big leaguer. With a .770 OPS, which he padded with an RBI double off NL Cy Young frontrunner Jacob Misiorowski in an 8-2 loss to the Brewers on Thursday, Young now leads the team.
That’s not what the Mets expected when they plucked Young out of the Korean Baseball Organization after the 2024 season. A 15th-round Draft pick of the Cubs in 2017, Young made it to the Majors for the first time five years later but didn’t stick. Two years after that, he decided midseason to move to Korea, where the money and the opportunities were better. His goal was to take a more winding path back to the Majors.
“I try not to look too far ahead, but I went there with the idea that I knew I could be an everyday big leaguer,” Young said. “Whether that happened right away, whether I stayed in Korea, we didn’t know how that was going to pan out. But I knew that I could play.”
After spending most of last year in the Minors, Young edged his way onto the 2026 Opening Day roster in part because of Mike Tauchman’s knee injury. Then he began hitting. And hitting. And hitting.
On April 5 in San Francisco, Young went 3-for-3 with his first career outfield assist after a late bump into the starting lineup. Even after tearing the meniscus in his left knee, undergoing surgery and missing six weeks, Young did not slow, producing a 1.018 OPS over his first nine games back from the IL. Jorge Polanco’s balky ankle opened up additional playing time for Young, as did Mark Vientos’ physical and performance issues. Thursday marked Young’s 13th consecutive game played, with 11 of those coming as the starting first baseman.
The Mets needed him. After the team went hitless over its first four innings against Misiorowski at Citi Field, Luis Robert Jr. drew a leadoff walk in the bottom of the fifth. The next batter, Young, two-hopped a 95.6 mph cutter off the wall in right-center field to plate Robert. He came around to score himself three batters later, narrowly avoiding a tag at home plate.
“He handles the tough stuff that comes at you in baseball really well,” interim manager Andy Green said. “He’s a great teammate. And a really good hitter. There’s not a lot of guys in baseball today when you look around the game that are throwing up .775 OPSs and above. It’s just very few and far between.”
At this point, Young is all but assured a place on the Mets’ 2026 roster. Because he came into the season with less than a year of Major League service time, Young is under team control for five more seasons -- the rest of his physical prime and then some.
The only question is how large of a role he will play. Polanco will be back after an offseason resting his surgically repaired left ankle. Vientos might be. Regardless, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Mets acquire another first baseman if they feel unmoved by the upside of that trio. For as good as Young has been, he’s hardly Pete Alonso, who’s looking like he will approach 40 home runs again in his first season in Baltimore.
To a certain extent, Young is happy simply to have carved out a role with this franchise. But he’s not about to rest on what he’s accomplished.
“I think getting comfortable and thinking everything is where it needs to be in baseball is a death sentence,” Young said. “So I think it’s just one of those things where, as cliché as it sounds, play every day, try and play a great game, help the team win, and at the end of the year, you’ll be in the spot that you want to be in. So I’m trying to keep [my mindset] like that.
“We [all] know how hard this league is. It’s the best league in baseball. So I feel like, yeah, I’m proud of myself, but I know there’s so much more work to do. And there’s so much still in there, too.”