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Last season, Jacob Young rose from High-A to the Major Leagues. This season, he is contending for a Gold Glove in center field.

It didn¡¯t take long into his big league career for Young to establish himself as a head-turning defender. Young, 25, is atop several statistical categories as he nears the end of his first full season in the pros.

¡°To me, he¡¯s a Gold Glover and he deserves it,¡± said Nationals manager Dave Martinez.

Entering Wednesday, Young led all players with 20 outs above average (OAA) ¨C by definition, ¡°a range-based metric of skill that shows how many outs a player has saved.¡± Among center fielders, Jose Siri of the Rays is second with 16 OAA.

Young also is the league leader in outs above average to a player¡¯s left (10) and first among center fielders to a player¡¯s right (six).

¡°We kind of knew what Jacob was defensively,¡± Martinez said. ¡°We didn¡¯t want to mess with him a whole lot because he could really go get the ball. I know we talked a little bit about positioning with him because he did play really, really shallow in the Minor Leagues, so we pushed him back a little bit. But other than that, we told him, make it his own, and he did that and he¡¯s been unbelievable.¡±

Young is tied with Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong with seven 5-star catches, plays that have a 0 to 25 percent catch probability. In 4-star catches (26 to 50 percent probability), Young is first among all players.

Young is also the league leader with 3.9 feet vs. average and 38.7 feet covered on jumps, ¡°the Statcast metric that shows which players have the fastest reactions and most direct routes in the outfield,¡± per MLB.com. His 4.7 reaction ¨C feet covered in the first 1.5 seconds in any direction ¨C also ranks first.

¡°He¡¯s very aggressive in the outfield, as we know,¡± Martinez said. ¡°He¡¯s great coming in on balls, he¡¯s really good going back on balls and laterally on balls. We worked really hard on his throwing where he gets in his legs a little bit better. He¡¯s made some pretty decent throws.¡±

Young has become the anchor in a developing Nationals outfield that includes fellow rookies James Wood in left and Dylan Crews (MLB¡¯s No. 1 overall prospect) in right. While each member of the trio has center-field experience, Martinez ¨C who played the majority of his Major League innings at the position ¨C has reiterated to Young how he views his role.

¡°The emphasis of him changing stuff when it comes to playing the outfield is, zero,¡± Martinez said. ¡°I always tell him all the time, ¡®Be aggressive, that¡¯s all I want you to do. You can catch everything.¡¯¡±