The Seattle Mariners traded outfielder Jarred Kelenic to the Atlanta Braves, the teams announced Sunday. The Braves also received left-handed pitcher Marco Gonzales, first baseman Evan White and cash considerations from Seattle. Pitchers Jackson Kowar and Cole Phillips are going to the Mariners.
The Braves, in need of an outfielder, paid a premium price of $29.25MM acquire an OFer with real potential, but a head that gets in the way of said potential. Will the trade even itself out?
Jarred’s 2024, a Tale of Peaks and Valleys
Kevin Seitzer‘s task for spring training was to fix Kelenic. Spring had its ups and downs, but when the season began, it looked like Seitzer had fixed the flaws in his swing and the Braves were ready to birth another beast into the NL East. In his first 25 PAs, the hits and walks were coming, the glove was top notch, and AA was leaned back in his La-Z Boy licking the sauce off his fingers. Unfortunately, a BABIP of .733 wasn’t sustainable and Jarred entered his first valley, carrying a .466 OPS for the next 79 PAs. His season continued its Scream Machine path of big highs and big low as Jarred got hot again and had a .930 OPS in 125 PAs.
Unfortunately, the pattern didn’t continue and July through September brought real struggles for Kelenic with a .559 OPS over the course of 3 months and 225 PAs.
Was that worth the near $30MM investment? The idea behind the Kelenic trade was that the Braves OF could absorb Kelenic’s mediocrity at the plate as long as he could maintain his elite OF defense. Unfortunately for the team, the only thing that measured out to be elite was his arm as his range was well below average.
2025 will be a big year for Kelenic. If his potential doesn’t show its face, the trade and the investment will be a 2 year disaster, and a fairly significant backstep for Anthopoulos and his team.
Ryan, I hadn’t realized that Kelenic’s defense was actually that bad – you taught me something! Looking a bit deeper into his numbers, I’ll try to defend him a little bit. I think his defense could be described as below-average, but I’ll try to argue that it’s not quite as bad as we might fear.
All numbers from Fangraphs.
Last year, he was 40th out of 54 qualified ML outfielders with -3 Statcast Runs Above Average for his range, and 39th out of 54 in overall Fielding Runs Above Average. Remember, though, that over 40% of his defensive innings came in center field, where he was clearly in over his head.
In general, since 2021, out of 51 outfielders with at least 3000 defensive innings, he’s in 33rd place out of 51 overall, and in 31st place for range. Over that time, his -4 Runs Above Average for range are identical to Aaron Judge’s mark. (Ronald Acuña’s in 44th place for range, with an astonishing -13 Runs, though he makes almost all of it back with his arm.)
Kelenic is not a good defensive outfielder, clearly, from the numbers. But he’s just below average, not awful. Unfortunately, Ronald is awful, and the contrast is pretty clear.
And it is awfully striking that Kelenic’s results in center field were no worse than they were in left field, which (again) suggests to me that a lot of his problems may be related to concentration and focus.
Like his offense, I think there’s room to hope that he can be better, but after 1400 plate appearances and 3000 defensive innings in the Show, it’s easy to wonder whether he’ll ever manage to reach his potential. I still have my hopes, but I really hope he can find a good sports psychologist who will help him to maintain his confidence and not get so down on himself. I’m guessing that his glove went through slumps just like his bat did.
Kelenic Is what he is.
I think this is close to where I’m at. I wouldn’t mind giving him one more year to turn a corner, but that would be it.
I wouldn’t bank on Kelenic being anything special, but I don’t like to give up on a talented athlete before age 26. Interesting that one of the most similar hitters through this point in Kelenic’s career was Hawk Harrelson. Hawk didn’t have much of a career, but he was an All-Star in his age 26 season with 35 homers and an OPS of .874.
No reason not to give him another year. He’s a 4th OF at worst.
Hopefully he won’t have to play center as much in 2025.
How many think Kelenic was pressing too much this year. I think so. We gave up to much to get him and we need to be more patient
The whole team was pressing. I’m hoping Hyers can get these guys to stop squeezing the sawdust out of the bat and and just trying to line it back through the box and work walks. I think Kelenic needs to narrow his hitting zone down. A lot of the psychology of hitting from this armchair sports psychologist is the fear of striking out and especially fear of taking strike 3. Need to let that go and focus on an area you know you can hit. If they throw you 3 sliders on the black you were out anyway. If you’re never taking strike 3 on 3-2, you aren’t taking nearly enough.
Mazel tov to Chris Sale, who just showed everybody how it’s done. Congratulations, Chris!
Much deserved, and for all the obloquy heaped on AA for some things in the past year or so, picking up Sale was a masterstroke.
I liked the idea of the Kelenic trade. More teams should just use their financial resources to acquire players without giving up prospects. What I didn’t like was immediately guaranteeing him a starting job, only to then insert him into a platoon. In a system devoid of outfield talent, it’s good to have someone with his upside around, but the Braves shouldn’t rely on him to be anything more than a fourth outfielder.
The 2025 Atlanta ZIPs projection just dropped and here’s what they have for Kelenic:
Player PA BA OBP SLG OPS+ ISO BABIP Def WAR wOBA 3Y OPS+RC
Jarred Kelenic 474 0.248 0.317 0.42 101 0.171 0.329 0 1.3 0.319 105 60
In the aggregate, that’s not terrible production for someone making the minimum in a platoon.
Aggregate stats are one thing, however, and on a day-to-day basis, I think the team would benefit greatly from more consistent production. Finding a left fielder on a short-term contract shouldn’t be too difficult and Kelenc is great insurance should Acuna struggle whenever he returns.
https://x.com/grantmcauley/status/1859990194377965897
My mistake, Kelenic is going to be higher than the minimum.
Laureano, Canning, Kerr, and Ynoa were non-tendered. The Braves will probably be looking for multiple OFs, a top relief pitcher, and a starter. Sadly, it looks like they might not be able to upgrade at SS this offseason.
The non tender of Laureano must mean the Braves will sign Juan Soto.
They made room for him on the 40-man, which is a really good sign.
RIP the Beeg Boy Rico Carty. He was one of the best hitters ever to wear an ATL Braves uniform. Injuries and illness kept him from compiling even better career stats.
And quite a character.
Carty was an excellent two-strike hitter.
Yeah, Carty hit just over 200 home runs over 16 years but half of them were in his first 6 years – and he missed a full year with tb and part of another with a separated shoulder. After winning the batting title in 1970, he had some pretty lean years because of injuries but he righted the ship in 1975 and finished the last 4 or 5 years of his career on a strong note. Kind of sad that he didn’t appear to get along well with Hank Aaron., but he could have been a top tier hall of famer without all the injuries and sickness. Hard to imagine him not winning the mvp in 1970, with a slash line of .366/.454/1.037, but given Johnny Bench’s defense at catcher, it is understandable that he won it with a.293/.345/.932 slash line and a 7.4 WAR, compared to Rico’s 5.8 WAR.
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