Jarred Kelenic started off the season as the nominal starting right fielder because of Ronald Acuña Jr.’s continued recovery from his knee injury. That role gave him effectively about six weeks to establish himself as a player finally ready for regular at bats and contributor status. That … didn’t happen, and he was so bad that he got optioned to the minors before we even got to May, and only reappeared in the big leagues to briefly serve as a pinch-runner.
After being part of a rather-infamous trade in which the Mets sent Kelenic to the Mariners for Robinson Cano, the Mariners then turned around and traded Kelenic to the Braves in December 2023 in order to get the Atlanta Braves to take the contracts of Marco Gonzalez and Evan White’s contracts off Seattle’s books. The idea was simple. Atlanta needed a corner outfielder, and they were acquiring a former top-ten pick at the cost of a few tens of millions of dollars in unwanted contracts. It seemed like a worthy gamble assuming nothing else was going to be done with the payroll at the time… and it has unequivocally not worked out.
What were the expectations?
Following the trade, hopes were high. Kelenic had a 110 wRC+ during the 2023 season, and while there were some fluky things in there, the idea was that he’d cut down on some of the strikeouts and do the general improvement things that young top prospects do. That … didn’t happen at all in 2024 as he was a below-average hitter who was good enough as a defender to not be exactly replacement-level. Part of the issue in 2024 was that Kelenic did eventually figure out an approach that worked for him and really took off for about three weeks at the start of the summer, only for him to, for seemingly no reason at all, completely abandon that approach and return to the same issues that had him struggle through the first two months of the season. Kelenic started the season in a platoon and secured a full-time role thanks to his good June run, but became a part-time player in mid-August and didn’t start any of the team’s last 13 games, as he was fully supplanted by Ramon Laureano.
If there were hopes that he would be a full-time starter in 2025, they were low, but he was going to get a shot. Acuña was coming back from an ACL tear, and Kelenic had something like 40-50 games to show that he could be an impact outfielder. The Braves, apparently, didn’t have much optimism as they signed Jurickson Profar late in the winter in order to take left field full-time. Kelenic was slotted into right field until Acuña came back, but it was anyone’s guess how that was going to go.
Projections-wise, Kelenic was coming off a combined 1.9 fWAR over his last three seasons heading into 2025, but had better projections in the 1.5ish WAR range for a season’s worth of work. Basically, he was projected to be decent-enough with the bat and defensively to be worth rostering, but not really worth starting full-time.
If you thought 2024’s 0.5 fWAR was a disappointment, well, you probably don’t have any kind words for 2025. Kelenic got all of 65 PAs in 24 games before the Braves decided they were done with him. His strikeout rate rose above 35 percent (from a career rate of about 30 percent). His walk rate was up a bit from 2024, but still undershot league average. His exit velocity and hard-hit rate declined from 2024 (though again, we’re talking 65 PAs here). His wRC+ was a … hahaha … 47. He underhit his xwOBA by roughly a bazillion (actually .060, a top-20 underperformance among anyone with 65+ PAs), but his xwOBA itself wasn’t any good either at .296, so it’s hard to shed too many tears for him there. He also didn’t distinguish himself defensively.
By the end of April, the Braves had optioned him to the minors in favor of *checks notes* Eli White, a redo of Eddie Rosario for whatever reason, and anything else the Braves could find to toss into a corner outfield spot. What makes it worse is that Profar was suspended in the first week of the session, and the Braves basically now had a ton of runway for Kelenic, and they went, “nah,” instead choosing to make us suffer 200+ PAs of Alex Verdugo, mostly in the leadoff spot.
Kelenic finished with -0.5 fWAR. He was called up for a brief stint in late July and got into one game as a pinch-runner. He elected free agency after being outrighted off the roster at the end of the season.
Well, Acuña came back and was generally awesome, and Profar eventually came back and solidified-ish the corner outfield. Does that count? Oh, wait, this is supposed to be about Kelenic.
He’s a pretty solid defensive outfielder…ish? (Not that he showed it in his three weeks before the Braves got tired of him in 2025.) I don’t know. I’m grasping for straws here.
He had a pretty crazy game on April 8, where he drew three walks and had a single; two of those walks and a single came against the stingy Zack Wheeler. One of those walks led to him scoring the then-go-ahead run, his single turned into him scoring the tying run in a game the Braves eventually came back to win 7-5. It was just the second time in his career he had at least 4 PAs and reached base successfully each time.
He also hit a pretty cool game-tying homer off Dylan Cease in the second game of the season, giving the briefest hope that he was actually going to be a useful player in 2025, but the Braves lost that game on a late homer anyway.
I mentioned basically everything above. Everything went the wrong direction for Kelenic. Statcast still says he has bat speed and can hit the ball hard, but without making enough actual contact, it doesn’t matter much. There also wasn’t enough run given to him (for good reason) to determine whether the Braves’ altered offensive approach broke him further, but that’s relatively inconsequential as he wasn’t exactly productive before the approach changed, either.
When Kelenic is at his best, he takes a good amount of walks, and he uses the bat speed and power to offset the enormous amount of strikeout. Then, he plays enough defense to make himself an above-average outfielder. But when he makes this little contact, there’s no saving him.
It’s also worth mentioning two other things. First, Kelenic got 399 PAs with the Gwinnett Stripers this season, and hit for an unfathomably bad 63 wRC+. Second, there have been mutterings about how he was essentially sulking the entire time he was in the minors, behaving more like someone on the receiving end of a punishment than someone determined to put in the work to get back to the majors on his own merits. The Braves talk about character all the time, even if they don’t necessarily truly mean it; they gambled on Kelenic and he came up short in that respect as well as in terms of production.
2026 is definitely a make-or-break season for him, but it’ll probably come with a non-contender with an outfield hole.
Atlanta has already outrighted him off the roster, and he has chosen free agency. There’s going to be enough interest in him as a reclamation project because of the prospect pedigree that he’ll get a Spring Training invite. I can’t imagine he gets much else, and I really can’t imagine he gets anything guaranteed that meaningfully exceeds the league minimum. I would be fairly surprised if he ends up back in the Braves organization, but the team has always skewed loyal, even to a fault. So, it’s possible.
Otherwise, he needs to do the opposite of what he did this year. That’s also possible. He was a top ten pick. He was a top ten prospect. He has had some sustained success in the majors. He had a scintillating June 2024. He’s still projected as above-replacement, though his outlook is way, way worse coming off a 2025 where he couldn’t even hit the ball in Triple-A than it was coming into this year. Still, those things are what will get him another chance.
But someone is going to have to put humpty-dumpty back together again.
