Motivated to make roster, Mariners top prospect Jarred Kelenic wants to ‘dominate this spring’
The words synced up perfectly with the crack of the bat.
Mariners manager Scott Servais was watching from the dugout Wednesday afternoon in Mesa, a headset situated over his ears as he spoke with ESPN analysts on a live broadcast of his club’s meeting with the Cubs.
Jarred Kelenic, the club’s top prospect and the subject of recent service time conversations around baseball, was up to bat.
Servais was answering a question about how clubs decide when to bring players up to the majors.
“Players will let you know when they’re ready,” he said, at the exact moment the 21-year-old swung and sent a pitch soaring toward the fence.
The ball didn’t come down until it reached the berm in left center, evading the glove of the leaping center fielder by several feet.
Kelenic rounded the bases, his first homer of Cactus League play — a two-run opposite-field shot — in the books. When he spoke to reporters on a video call later, he was asked about the timing of his home run and what his manager said on the broadcast.
“I think it’s perfect timing,” he said.
Kelenic has long asserted he is ready to make his big league debut. In his first season in Seattle’s system in 2019, he hit .291/.364/.540 with 31 doubles, five triples, 23 homers, 68 RBI and 20 stolen bases across 117 games at three different levels.
But, in the months since he posted that stat line, the Mariners have held to their plan to get Kelenic more experience at the higher levels of the minors — he has less than 100 at-bats above A-ball — before bringing him to Seattle.
Though he impressed in summer camp last July, the young outfielder was not named to the club’s Opening Day roster, and with the absence of a minor league season, he spent two months in Tacoma at the club’s alternate training site.
Comments made by former club president and CEO Kevin Mather in the now infamous call with the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club last month suggested the Mariners did not intend to bring Kelenic up last season. Mather also said Kelenic would “be in left field in April,” indicating the club would send him to Triple-A out of camp.
After the footage of Mather’s call was made public, Kelenic and his agent Brodie Scoffield outlined their frustrations in a story published by USA Today, implying Kelenic’s service time is being manipulated because he declined to sign a long-term deal with the club last year.
This is how service time works: Players become eligible for free agency after six years of major league service time. They qualify for a year of service time if they are on the active roster or injured list of a big league club for 172 days of what is normally a 187-day season. Big league clubs can essentially delay the clock from starting by waiting to promote players until only 171 days remain in a given season, delaying free agency for an additional year.
The Mariners have said throughout Kelenic’s first two years in the organization their timeline for bringing him up is based entirely on development and wanting to get him meaingful minor league at-bats.
“We will develop Jarred fully before we put him in a big league uniform, and we don’t feel like we’ve achieved that yet for a variety of reasons,” general manager Jerry Dipoto said while speaking with 710 ESPN radio last week. “We are not manipulating his service time. We are doing our best to develop him fully.”
If Kelenic does indeed start the season in the minors, the situation is now a bit more complicated.
Major League Baseball informed clubs Tuesday the Triple-A season, which was set to start in April, will now be delayed by a month. Alternate training sites will return — the Mariners will likely again host their reserve players in Tacoma — and the Rainiers are now expecting to open the season on May 6 instead of April 8.
That leaves the Mariners with a few options regarding where Kelenic opens 2021.
He could make the Opening Day roster without the minor league at-bats the Mariners have said they want to see.
He could stay in Arizona for minor league spring training to face more live pitching after the big league club returns to Seattle for its April 1 opener against the Giants.
He could be assigned to the alternate site, play intrasquad games, and either earn a promotion from there before the minor league season starts, or record Triple-A at-bats when Tacoma’s season does begin, delaying his arrival in Seattle until at least May.
While players and coaches did find some developmental value in playing intrasquad games at Cheney Stadium last summer, there was still no way to replace the valuable experience of a minor league season, which in a normal year offers hundreds of at-bats against a variety of opponents.
Kelenic’s thoughts were clear when he was asked about wanting to return to the alternate site.
“Absolutely not,” he said. “I went through one all last summer, played extremely well throughout the alternate site, but here’s the thing — it’s not sunshine and rainbows whatsoever. It’s hard to develop at all when it comes to an alternate site. It’s not real-life games. You’re not playing against other competition.
“But, at the end of the day, last year those are the cards that were dealt, and hopefully this year the dealer gave me different cards. I’m just going to keep going out, trying to compete my butt off here in spring training and just take it one day at a time.”
Kelenic, the No. 4 prospect in all of baseball by MLB Pipeline, is 2-for-6 with a single, the home run, two RBI, one walk and one strikeout in his first seven plate appearances of the spring.
He believes he can help the Mariners now, and plans to continue proving that throughout camp.
When Kelenic spoke to USA Today following the comments made by Mather, he said he was “extremely disappointed” he did not debut last year.
“I worked extremely hard all offseason,” he said in the story. “And last year, here you have a team that is one game out of the playoffs going into the last weeks of the season. I know for a fact I could have helped that team out. Not just me, but there are other guys who could have helped that team out.
“Not to be given that opportunity was so beyond frustrating. I feel that guys should be rewarded for their play, and have the best guys on the field, especially when you talk about a team that hasn’t gone to the playoffs in 20 years, and your best prospects are just sitting there watching.”
Now, Kelenic is using the comments made as motivation.
“I’m a competitor,” he said. “I’m a very driven person as it is. Having said that, something like this comes up, and I think you can look at it one of two ways. You can sit and you can pout about it, or you can use it as motivation and let it drive you even more, and that’s kind of where I’m at is each and every day, I’m letting this drive me.
“ … I’m just going to go out and use it as motivation and try to dominate this spring.”
‘It feels like it was just yesterday’
More than 630 days had passed since Mitch Haniger had last played in a big league baseball game — regular season or otherwise — so it made sense that the 30-year-old right-fielder kept smiling after playing three innings Sunday in Seattle’s Cactus League opener.
“Honestly it kind of felt like normal,” Haniger said. “Just (to) go through the routine, get back on the field.
“I know it’s been a while, and it definitely felt like a long time going through it, but now that I’m back, it feels like it was just yesterday.”
But, it has been much longer than that. It was June 6, 2019 when Haniger suddenly had his season derailed when a wayward foul ball resulted in a ruptured testicle and surgery.
His attempts to return to the field that August were sidetracked by back issues, and he had two more surgeries in a three-week span that winter that sidelined him for the entirety of the shortened 2020 season.
Finally back at full strength, Haniger said he reported early to Peoria this spring to stand in on some live bullpen sessions, and has seemed back in form this first week of games.
He started in right field for Seattle in the first two games before a day off Wednesday, and logged hits in both appearances, including a double Tuesday against Cleveland.
Haniger said the early weeks of spring training have felt normal from a health standpoint, and he has focused on keeping his core strong, continuing his exercises and staying mobile.
Where did he feel the most sore after Game 1? His feet.
“For me, that was always the hardest part — getting used to just wearing the cleats again in spring training,” he said with a smile. “But, the body has felt good.”
Julio walks it off
Julio Rodriguez gave Mariners fans a moment to dream on Sunday afternoon.
Seattle was locked with the Padres — a favorite to contend for a World Series title in 2021 — heading into the bottom of the ninth of its Cactus League opener.
Two quick strikeouts implied this spring training game might end in a 4-4 tie, but Kelenic drew a two-out walk, Braden Bishop was hit by a pitch and Jack Reinheimer walked to load the bases.
Then Rodriguez, another of the club’s top outfield prospects, walked up to the plate, ripped a base hit back up the middle, and Kelenic trotted home, giving the Mariners the walk-off win.
Rodriguez driving in Kelenic for the game-winning run? Sounds like something fans can dream about for years to come.
“Those kids are fun,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said postgame. “They really are. They come to the park every day just trying to get better and learn from the group we have around them, and it’s great getting them those experiences.”
When speaking to reporters about the moment later, Rodriguez said it’s time for fans to get excited about the future of this club.
“We have really, really good players in this organization, so it is a really good time to get excited about them,” he said. “To be honest, that’s something I can see for a long, long time.”
Short hops
Kelenic mashed Seattle’s first home run of the spring — but he wasn’t the only Mariner to leave Sloan Park on Wednesday afternoon. Outfield prospect Taylor Trammell hammered a solo shot an inning after Kelenic and Reinheimer launched a two-run shot in the ninth. ... Servais said starter Yusei Kikuchi took a “step in the right direction” with his first outing of the spring Tuesday, tossing two innings and striking out three while allowing one run on one hit and a walk. “I thought his stuff was really sharp,” Servais said. “Very aggressive.” ... The Mariners skipped James Paxton in the rotation Wednesday to give the veteran left-hander an opportunity to work on his secondary pitches in a simulated game on one of the backfields at their complex in Peoria. “It is about April 1, it’s not about where we’re at here in early March,” Servais said.
This story was originally published March 3, 2021 at 6:25 PM.
