Jarred Kelenic has been mashing the baseball for the Mariners this season, and his never-ending hype roller coaster is threatening to reach never-before-seen heights.
Baseball fans on both coasts want to know — is the steep drop looming … again?
Kelenic, still only 23 years old, is finally showing, at the major league level, the talent and promise that made him a consensus Top-5 prospect in all of baseball heading into the 2021 season.
It’s the type of production Mariners fans have eagerly awaited, and the reason Mets fans probably won’t be checking the Seattle box scores anytime soon.
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If you’re not a fan of either team, here’s a recap: Kelenic was the key piece the Mets included (with four other players) in the December 2018 deal that sent closer Edwin Diaz and second baseman Robinson Cano from Seattle to Queens, a first-round pick earlier that year — No. 6 overall — who looked like a future All-Star in his one season in the Mets’ minor league system. Mets fans were furious that their future superstar was jettisoned for a reliever and a past-his-prime second baseman who was coming off a PED suspension.
The anger was real, and it certainly felt justified in 2019, Kelenic’s first season in the Seattle system. While Cano struggled in New York and Diaz had his worst year in the bigs, Kelenic cruised through three levels, hitting 23 homers, stealing 20 bags and posting a .904 OPS in 117 games. The pandemic shut down the 2020 minor league system, and the Mariners didn’t call him up to the majors. Still, the hype built.
Seattle didn’t start him in the majors in 2021, either, despite not-so-subtle accusations of service-time tampering. After a torrid start down the road in Triple-A Tacoma, Kelenic was called up and made his debut on May 13. The next day, Kelenic went 3-for-4 vs. Cleveland, with a homer, two runs scored and three RBIs. The future had arrived in Seattle. Hype levels were almost unbelievable. Mets fans couldn’t bear to look at what was happening on the West Coast.
And then, Kelenic stopped hitting. Completely. He went 5-for-75 and was sent back to Triple-A in early June. Kelenic returned after the All-Star break and still struggled before finally finding some footing in the season’s last month, when he hit .248 with seven homers and a .854 OPS. Despite a season slash line of .181/.265/.359, with a 72 OPS+ and minus-1.8 bWAR, the hope of September meant the hype that had wavered now had an entire offseason to build.
The train never left the station in 2022, though. Kelenic was batting just .140 in early May, forcing Seattle to sent him back to the minors, where he stayed until the very end of July. He struck out 11 times in 27 at-bats, with a .074 average, though, and went back to Tacoma until mid-September. He had his “best” stretch to end the season, with three homers, a .180 average and .713 OPS in 58 PAs.
So, yeah, Mets fans were at least a little happy their favorite prospect hadn’t burned them. Seattle fans were disappointed, but at least they had Julio Rodriguez.
Kelenic, though, wasn’t quite done, it seems. He showed up this spring with a different swing, and a commitment to staying in the zone. He was productive in Peoria, posting a .353/.389/.706 slash line, with four homers, three stolen bases, two triples, two doubles and 10 RBIs in 19 spring contests. The “is this for real?” whispers grew louder every game. Mariners fans afraid of getting hurt remained skeptical, though most of them are starting to believe the hype. How could you not?
This doesn’t feel like a fluke, like a lost slugger running into a couple of pitches. The changes he’s made to his swing in the offseason are real.
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Now, Kelenic mania is alive and well. One example is in the baseball card hobby, where Kelenic cards are once again flying off the shelves, especially in Seattle, and being churned through on eBay at a level we haven’t seen in many, many years.
Josh Decker is a Seattle sports fan who got back into the hobby in 2020 — like so many who rediscovered the passion during the pandemic — and he was all-in on Kelenic. So much so that he kept buying Kelenic cards in 2021 and 2022, despite his struggles. If nothing else, cheap buys were available.
“I never gave up on Kelenic,” Decker wrote, via Twitter DM. “I kept buying his cards even when they were super low. Maybe I was just doubling down on my previous investments but now it doesn’t look like it was a bad move after all.”
Decker and some friends had a table at a card show in the Seattle area in February, and he didn’t even bother putting any Kelenic cards in his display case. He did place a chunk of a bet on Kelenic that month, though, buying a Bowman’s Best autographed superfractor 1/1 for $750. He promptly sent it off to get graded.
After Kelenic’s strong spring, Decker and his buddies had another table at a show on April 1, two days after Opening Day. This time, he brought a bunch of graded Kelenic cards to display. Turns out, the card show patrons viewed them as conversation pieces more than investments. With only a few low-ball offers, he didn’t sell a single card.
About a week into the season, Kelenic caught fire. He homered in four consecutive games — including that massive shot at Wrigley Field — and was mashing the ball around the ballpark seemingly every time he stepped to the plate. From April 8 through April 16, Kelenic had a .464/.531/1.000 slash line, with the four homers, eight RBIs, three doubles, seven runs scored and even two stolen bases.
Yes, this baseball really landed way up there!
A 482-foot blast for Jarred Kelenic! 🚀It’s the longest home run hit in a regular season game at Wrigley Field in the entire Statcast era! 😮pic.twitter.com/dGBZ7ATUcE
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) April 12, 2023
Suddenly, Decker’s cards were very popular. He’s sold north of 20 Kelenic cards in the past week, most of them in the $100 to $400 range, with one going for roughly $1,000. All those prices, he said, were much higher than what he was asking at the April 1 show, once again proving the adage about snoozing and losing.
Oh, and the superfractor he bought in the early days of spring training? That came back not long after the season started, with a PSA 10 stamped on the slab. It’s easily worth north of $4,000, probably much more. How much more? Well, that kinda depends.
Is this Kelenic’s new normal? Anyone who scouted him leading up to the 2018 MLB Draft knew his ceiling was high, and anyone who watched him toy with minor league pitchers knew he was capable of great things.
If this is the new normal, Seattle becomes that much more of a legitimate contender. Not just for a playoff spot or the AL West, but for a World Series title. Hell, titles, plural.
You know what, though? Maybe let’s pump the brakes a bit. If he’s still doing this by the All-Star break — that game is in Seattle this year, by the way — then we’ll talk. And then maybe we’ll see how much Decker’s superfractor is worth.