7:40PM: For his part, Kelenic is not worried about being derailed by the injury. He plans to be back in seven days, per the Athletic’s Corey Brock. The Mariners will obviously monitor Kelenic closely, but GM Jerry Dipoto also did not sound overly concerned, saying he looks forward to seeing Kelenic back in the “near future.”
1:44PM: Kelenic suffered a Grade 2 strain, Divish reports, which usually carries a recovery period of three-to-six weeks.
1:21PM: Mariners prospect Jarred Kelenic will be out of action after an MRI revealed a strain in his left adductor muscle, the team announced. Kelenic suffered the injury during Friday’s game against the White Sox.
No mention was made of a recovery timeline, apart from GM Jerry Dipoto saying “we are relieved that the long-term outlook is positive. We all look forward to seeing him back on the field in the near future.” Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times estimated that Kelenic is likely to miss “a few weeks” of time, which would rule out any chance of Kelenic making the Opening Day roster. Kelenic has yet to play any Triple-A ball in his brief pro career, and it now seems as if he will indeed begin his 2021 season with Triple-A Tacoma.
Kelenic’s MLB debut date has been the subject of controversy in recent days, stemming from the infamous comments made by now-former Mariners president/CEO Kevin Mather during a video speech to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club in February. Mather openly discussed how the M’s had no intention of calling up any of its top young prospects from the alternate training site last season, and hinted that the team was planning to keep Kelenic and Logan Gilbert in Triple-A long enough this year for the Mariners to gain an extra year of team control over their services. Kelenic and his agent later commented that he would have made his Seattle debut in 2020 had Kelenic accepted a long-term contract extension that would have given the M’s even more team control over Kelenic’s future.
A consensus pick as one of baseball’s top 10 prospects, the 21-year-old Kelenic was the Mets’ choice as the sixth overall pick of the 2018 draft, and the centerpiece of the Mariners’ return in the blockbuster deal that sent Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz from Seattle to New York in December 2018. The trade already looms as a pivotal moment in Mariners history, and it will become even more impactful should Kelenic and Justin Dunn live up to lofty expectations.
Now he won’t start the season and loses his service time. So much for the grievance. It’s not gonna matter. He just gave the Mariners the excuse they were looking for to keep him under team control for another year.
How convenient…
I hate to be the one to tell you this but there’s nothing convenient about the injury for the Mariners.
They didn’t need an excuse to hold him down for service time. They were going to do that one way or another. I’m pretty sure they’d rather he stayed healthy and took the standard public backlash that’s expected from it.
Chill out, dude. Jokes aren’t your thing?
Chill out, dude. It wasn’t an attack on you.
No one can correct anyone in here without them getting defensive and thinking the other person is “angry” or something.
If that was a joke… maybe try to make a better one next time? I dunno lol
Guess not
Why would they want public backlash over no public backlash? It’s just 3-6 weeks & a sprain…doesn’t sound like a big deal.
“No one can correct anyone without getting defensive” pot, kettle.
So you actually think they’d rather have one of their top prospects injured just to avoid a bit of public backlash?
Looks like you don’t think it’s a joke either.
Also how in the world did you come to the conclusion that I said they wanted public backlash over no public backlash? I said they’d be much happier to take the public backlash and avoid the injury. Hence, it’s not convenient for them. Strong reading comprehension
Cmon guys, it’s obviously Michael Jordan, how can anyone criticize the GOAT?
Kelenic might file a grievance but probably won’t. I can tell you this. I believe Kelenic will become not just the Mariners but the entire American League representative in the MLBPA union. Tom Glavine used to hold the same position in the National League. I have never heard of a better candidate prior to Triple-A or even Major League experience than Kelenic. Any thoughts?
BrittinghamSports7 hours ago
I have never heard of a better candidate prior
========================================================
I’m curious about what you know of his level of education, his aptitude for public speaking, and his leadership skills.
The biggest issue facing the PU in the last go-around, was being led by someone with no skills.
Good point, Joe. I haven’t him speak much. I wouldn’t care so much about his college education so much as his actual useful knowledge. They seem to be very dissimilar nowadays. I’ve met some people that dropped out of high school yet are still much more intelligent, successful and productive than several doctors I also know. Kelenic doesn’t seem to lack the confidence of a public speaker though. You’re right, though. Tom Glavine is extremely intelligent, knowledgeable and great at public speaking as well as getting his point across. Kelenic might not have those particular attributes. I don’t know enough about most individual minor league players personalities to say which ones do. I was kind of looking at it from the outside assuming all things were equal in that regard. If you don’t know who is great at public speaking you just kind of assume he has as good of a chance at anybody in that regard. I couldn’t think of any young minor league player in particular that I know for a fact fits that mold better than Kelenic. You know what I mean?
I don’t see how this changes anything with respect to a grievance, the team still publicly admitted that they leveraged a team friendly contract against service time. He could have been up last year according to the recording.
If he filed a grievance this early in his career they would send him down every single time he hit a 4 games slump to make up for those days. If you look at the george springer case, he was made a similar offer while in the minors and it was ruled that contract offer wasn’t enough to mean his service time was manipulated.
Yes except 1 big distinction between Kelenic and literally every other player is that his manipulation is on record. If Kelenic doesn’t file a grievance the union will.
That only works if he never slumps. If he files a grievance and hits .220 for a period of a week they’ll just send him down to make up the time.
Kris Bryant was told he needed to work on his defense, on the record, and got hit 3 balls in his time in AAA.
That’s true. The problem is that recording was only 1 man’s opinion and that man has basically been fired (technically resigned but we all know what really happened). The current people running the Mariners are going to say they don’t believe Kelenic was ready and Mather was alone in his belief. Unless more evidence surfaces, there will be absolutely no way to prove them wrong. They will point to his lack of upper minor league experience and the arbiter will determine that it is reasonable to assume they could truly believe he wasn’t ready. The Mariners will win and that will prevent the Pandora’s Box of service time manipulation rules from being opened and the chaos that would surely ensue when hundreds of other players file grievances too if Kelenic were to set some precedent. Just because Mather said he thought Kelenic was ready doesn’t mean anyone can prove anyone else running the Mariners organization felt the same way. This injury actually likely didn’t change the process at all. Once Mather was fired it almost guaranteed the Mariners could still keep Kelenic down and face no repercussions anyway. The injury does seem to make it more likely that whoever is making the calls now is just going to be that much more untouchable. Mather will go down as the only person that kept Kelenic down when he was healthy and even could have been ready.
21 games at AA and none in AAA. don’t think he would be dumb enough to file that grievance. sure the recording is awful but in itself is not proof of a plan to keep him down.
Yeah. That’s a good point. He might not even file the grievance. For some reason I thought he had already announced he was going to but I was probably mistaken. It would kind of be foolish to even try. He would have lost the grievance anyway. Now with Mather being gone and him being injured, it seems even more futile. My guess is It would only serve to soil his relationship with the Mariners organization and it’s fans. No matter what Mather said, there is no way a player with zero Triple-A experience wins a service time manipulation agreement unless Mather were still running the show in Seattle. The personal opinions of a man who is no longer an employee can’t force an organization to call up a player with this little experience. This service time thing is something that will never change until both sides agree to address it in the next CBA. The only thing the MLBPA can really effectively do right now is make sure than any executives who openly admit it will get fired. It’s kind of counterproductive for the MLBPA to even want that though. They should want as many current execs openly talking about it as much as possible right now. At least that would give them more ammunition during the CBA. Pushing for Mather to leave the organization did nothing but give the Mariners (and presumably any other teams that could be manipulating service time) a fall guy. If Mather has his job than this is something MLB teams allow and that would “need to change” in the next CBA. Now, from a legal standpoint, it’s just Mather that was doing it and he got pushed out of his organization because of it. If all the execs like Mather got to keep their jobs, the MLBPA might actually have a case.
All these guys probably aren’t ready for the majors anyway. Remember Vlad jr outrage? Guy was a fat slob. Being a mlb player is more than just on the field stuff. They need a year or two of AAA there’s always stuff to learn. Vlad needed to learn how to say no to cheeseburgers and how to field at 3b. They rush these incomplete players to mlb because the dumb a$$ simpleton fans yelling service time manipulation. Just ignore these goofs.
Kelenic obviously needs to learn how to rehab like a big leaguer. Good learning experience.
Absolutely 100% correct. Too many teams allow star players use service time to learn their trade. In Machado’s first three years, he had a .747 OPS. He’s had an .852 since then. Bogaerts had a .720 in his first three, and .844 since then.
For Kelenic specifically, he has had approximately one full season of ABs with 663. He had 161 strikeouts in those 663 ABs. I don’t think he is all that close to being ready.
He’s injured. That’s a FACT. He’s definitely NOT going to be healthy when the season starts. That’s a FACT. He’s going to need time to “ramp up”. That’s a FACT. No excuses needed when the decision is 100% based on FACTS. If he didn’t get hurt, people could (would) whine, moan & groan if he didn’t make the opening day roster. That is now IRRELEVANT, let’s move on. Hoping for a speedy recovery for the guy. He’s definitely got the talent to be very good.
With the AAA season delayed a month plus this injury, the Mariners must be lickin their chops at that additional year of service time. “Let’s bring him up in June screw it!!”
oh jesus just @$%!ing kill me now.
No problem. Guillotine or firing squad?
High ranking Mariners prospect + knee injury can only mean one thing for the fans…
Dealer’s choice: slug or buckshot.
drawn and quartered off the table?
Sounds like a Tonya Harding job. All according to plan.
yeah soon as I read this, I was like, where is Jeff Gilooly?
Didn’t the same thing happen to Vlad Jr? He got a small injury that gave them all the reason they needed.
he had a short injury, and was out a short ammount of time. im pretty sure he actually missed a chunk of 2018 with an injury as well.
Yes. Missed a lot of the last portion of spring training due to injury.
Vlad Jr. is also going to ultimately be an example of a lot of fuss over nothing. Toronto is not currently worried about losing a year of service time with Vlad Jr. The media made this guy out to be a Hall of Famer before playing an MLB game. Toronto isn’t even concerned about losing 2 years of service time to a guy who should already be a full-time DH and isn’t likely to get a break the bank contract.
Tests administered at the Kelenic down the road
Lol…good pun.
It wasn’t. Don’t encourage him.
Lol vtadave grow up dude also three people liked it so mission accomplished by two.
Ha just messing with you. Mad that I hadn’t thought of it first.
My holistic healer once recommended a hyper kelenic, whatever THAT means
Cole over the last 3 seasons:
2.71 ERA
2 85 FIP
485.1 IP
0.962 WHIP
162 ERA+
696 K
14.4 WAR
deGrom over the last 3 seasons:
2.10 ERA
2.31 FIP
489 IP
188 ERA+
0.943 WHIP
628 K
20.0 WAR
And this has what to do with Kelenic?
LoL what…
Typical New Yorker… it’s all about them…
Typical non New Yorker…Thinks it’s the world vs New York. And likes to think they know what a “typical New Yorker” is.
Stop acting like it’s not all about NY. Have a good one.
Just a little PSA from sad Mets fans hoping you don’t forget about them
please don’t judge mets fan by him. We real mets fans wish we could pull a kelenic on him too.
Did you say Cole?
As in….
CoLe HaMeLs?!?!?!?!
Metsfan22 –
Dude you should be in a straightjacket at Bellevue
The Mets are an embarassment.
MetsFan22:
So what you’re telling me is that over the last 3 seasons Gerrit Cole has recorded 68 more strikeouts than Jacob deGrom? On top of having many more post season strikeouts as well? Interesting.
Well he uses pine tar so he should.
Haha. Hey… would you bet the farm That deGrom doesn’t use pine tar? I sure wouldn’t. I’ve heard estimates that over 80% of MLB pitchers do. There’s a very good likelihood deGrom is in that group. Especially when you consider how low deGrom was drafted and then he suddenly just “figured it all out.” The figuring out part could have easily just been deGrom figuring out how many other pitchers used some substance like pine tar and how much it actually helped so he might as well use it too. Cole could just flat out be a better strike-out pitcher than deGrom. I was really just joking with my comment though. I’m with you. deGrom is a better overall pitcher that Cole and I would rather have him any day. Especially when considering their contracts and how much more Cole is going to hurt your teams payroll.
Whoa! So we agree! Cole is better!
Kelenic was gonna start at AAA regardless of injury or dumb comments made by the former GM. The guy has never played above AA
and to do otherwise would probably have been foolish
If service time weren’t a thing and he were raking in spring training then he would be a starter right away on this team regardless
He didn’t even play that many games at AA either. Commonsense is so often overlooked and dismissed by knee jerk actions & reactions. Even before the injury it made PERFECT SENSE that he’d start the season in the minors.
Maybe, but Juan Soto had 8 games above A+. Not saying Kelenic is that level of talent, but who knows…
Karma?
No
The kid is MLB-ready, from what I see. Remember, Juan Soto skipped Triple-A, and he’s a superstar. Hoping Kelenic gets back and mashes in Seattle this year.
You don’t just go around throwing Soto comps anywhere. Stop it
“he’s a poor man’s Tom Brady”
Speaking of Soto it is interesting that his agent Scott Boras will not let him sign a Tatis type contract with Washington, even though they did not screw him over like the Cubs did with Bryant. It shows Boras is talking out of both sides of his mouth. The Cubs treated Bryant bad so they need to be condemned, but the Nationals cannot be rewarded for not doing it to Soto.
Boras is a snake…. the slimy, slithery kind that does nothing but ruins what he’s involved in.
Successful economically? Absolutely! Gets players paid higher than others? Absolutely!
But, like unethical attorneys who can make millions by leveraging…… gaps(?) in our judicial system, Boras’ harm is largely unnoticed and overshadowed by his financial accomplishments. It is only when the inevitable breach of his fiduciary duties is brought to light will his unscrupulous behavior be scrutinized.
Soto had 122 minor league games over 2+ seasons.
So, lemme get this right – you take a prospect and compare him to a top 1% player of MLB?! Ha! That’s how you determine he’s ready? Because of what Juan Soto is doing??
You see the problem with this, right? It’s like saying, “well, since x player was drafted first this years he’s going to be a first-ballot HOFer, just like Mickey Mantle, DiMaggio, and Mays. For they were also drafted first.”
You can’t just compare him to one of, if not the best hitter in baseball simpily because he could skip Triple-A entierly. Players need time to develop. A player who skips Triple-A entierly and turns into Juan Soto happens very, very rarely.
I’m confident he will heal properly and completely. The time will go by fast
…IN OTHER NEWS…someone found the chase and how to cut to it.
As a Mets fan I hate seeing posts about him. Friggin’ Brodie.
Too bad so sad
Kevin Mather is a free agent! We all know he said he would get MLB time before Kelenic! All jokes aside, hopefully Kelenic heals up soon and gets his due. Baseball needs as many young stars as it can get.
The big question is will Kelenic hold a Bryant type grudge against the Mariners or will he take the Don Vito Corleone approach “It’s not personal it’s just business.”?
Personal grudge. Like all the spoiled rotten, silver-spoon-fed babies of the current working generation, he’s entitled. He thinks it’s owed to him. Therefore, since he didn’t get it “his way right away” it must be somebody else’s fault. Throw spineless agents into the mix and it will be the Mariners who wear the ugly at that prom.
Wow you must know him so well!
Well looks like it’s time for Kevin Mathers big tummy in left field.
Soto had 122 minor league games over 2+ seasons. Kelenic drafted in ’18 played 56 games in the GCL that yr. In his 1st full season 50 lo A,46 hi A & 21 AA batting .309, .290 & .253 as a 19 yr old. With the 2020 season being wiped out it’s OBVIOUS that he DOES indeed NEED more seasoning.
To most normal people, yes. To Kelenic and the service time warriors, not so much. He probably hurt his knee turning to complain about service time while running.
@Yankee Clipper
Precisely, granted Kevin Mathers said some things he shouldn’t have. (Like how his biggest concern is having his employees park a long way from T-Mobile park, in a terrible part of town but he wasn’t going to let them park in his parking garage close to the stadium “because he can charge 30, 40, 50 dollars to park there.”) But Kelenic shouldn’t complain about not getting called up in a 60 game season to play on a team that was going nowhere. And to have the audacity to cry “service time manipulation” when he hasn’t even played a real game all year, besides those silly scrimmages with the same people at the alternate site.
Kelenic has 161 Ks in 663 AB in mostly A & A+ environments. You’d probably be guaranteed 200+ Ks in the pros.
I wonder if the people screaming for his promotion even consider these inconvenient facts.
And it starts…
By near future he means 14 days into the season