Jarred Kelenic

Kelenic failed to live up to the lofty expectations placed upon him in Seattle, but he will get a chance to start anew in Atlanta in 2024. The sixth overall pick in 2018, Kelenic was once viewed as a top prospect, if not the top prospect in all of baseball. Most Mets fans bemoaned his departure from the organization in the 2018 Edwin Diaz trade. After a disastrous first couple MLB seasons, Kelenic finally enjoyed a taste of big-league success in 2023, though he also missed a large portion of the year due to a fractured left foot, the result of kicking a water cooler in frustration. His poor luck on balls in play reversed and Kelenic finished above league average by many offensive measures. It's important to remember that he is still just 24 years old, and even with his strikeout issues (30.7 K%), he's shown some good things at the plate and on the bases. It's best to project a platoon role, but there may be upside from there in regards to playing time. His landing spot in Atlanta makes a post-hype gamble all the more intriguing.

Kelenic's sophomore season was worse than his rookie campaign. A strong spring finish earned him a starting job, but Kelenic was soon demoted to Triple-A Tacoma. He earned another callup in late July but was again overmatched by MLB pitching so the visit was again short-lived and he rejoined the Rainers before a final promotion in late September. This time, Kelenic impressed with a 1,107 OPS in seven games before he was hit by a pitch on the hand. While Kelenic's career .758 OPS and 19.1% strikeout rate facing hard stuff isn't great, it's Ruth-ian compared to his .418 OPS and 41.5% strikeout rate versus break balls and changeups. Be it pitch recognition or timing, Kelenic clearly has an issue, but it should be fixable. The catch is Seattle is in win now mode and has depth in the outfield, so Kelenic must hit to play. The talent to turn things round is there, the opportunity is in jeopardy.

We've been spoiled by some incredible prospect debuts in recent years. Kelenic does not fit in that category as his rookie year was nothing short of a colossal letdown. He finished with a miserable .181/.265/.350 line in 377 PA. Kelenic showed a pulse with an .854 OPS and seven homers over the final month of the season, and he swiped double-digit bags between Triple-A and the majors, but for a large portion of the year he was simply not doing damage on hittable pitches in the strike zone. His struggles in that regard are reflected in a bottom-eighth percentile xBA and middling 87.5 mph avgEV. Nobody these days is foolish enough to extrapolate his September over a full season, but somebody in your draft room is going to bet aggressively on a bounce-back from a player considered a top prospect in the game this time last year. It may be wise to wait another season and invest in a more proven option with that draft capital.

There was a stretch during summer camp in July where Kelenic was not only the prospect du jour, but the talk of the entire baseball world. Videos of his sweet left-handed home run swing were going viral and people were clamoring for him to make the big-league roster. He would have debuted in a 162-game season, but the rebuilding Mariners kept him at the alternate training site throughout the shortened season. With a good spring training, Kelenic will set himself up for a service-time manipulating April call-up or a long-term extension that would facilitate an Opening Day debut. He should assume a prominent spot in the lineup from day one and has five-category upside as a rookie. He could very reasonably go 25/15 during his age-21/22 season, but projecting his batting average and OBP is a more difficult assignment. The draft day price tag figures to only increase as we near the start of the season.

Kelenic has lived up to his billing as the top prep hitter from the 2018 draft, and after climbing from Low-A to Double-A in his first full season, he will soon be knocking on the door of the majors. Acquired from the Mets in last offseason's Robinson Cano/Edwin Diaz trade, Kelenic was supposed to be an average runner with a hit-over-power profile, but he seems faster (20-for-27 on SB attempts) and more intent on pulling the ball out to right field. His 17.9 LD% and 52.2 Pull% at Double-A would be concerning marks if it weren't his third level of his age-19/20 season. Still, it is worth tracking how he performs against upper-level pitching now that he can't just hunt fastballs in hitter's counts. A back injury limited him to three games in the Arizona Fall League. The Mariners had an overly aggressive promotion schedule for him last year and there's no reason to expect that to stop in 2020 if he performs.

The Mets cashed out Kelenic before his full-season debut -- if they had not, Seattle reportedly would not have included Edwin Diaz in the deal. Through 12 games in the GCL, he looked like the best player from the 2018 draft. That production was unsustainable (.514 BABIP, 58.3 Pull%), but it made him the talk of the prospect community. The No. 6 overall pick was promoted to the Appy League, where his production normalized and we got a better sense of his true talent. He showed plus speed (11-for-12 on SB attempts), hit for power (.178 ISO) and demonstrated a good handle of the strike zone (11.0 BB%, 19.5 K%). The rep on Kelenic coming into the draft was that he may be the best prep hitter in the class. He had reverse splits (.256/.340/.426 in 200 PA vs. RHP, .409/.490/.636 in 51 PA vs. LHP), which will be something to track at Low-A. Using the whole field more often will allow him to reach his ceiling as a five-category OF2.