Champ or Chump: Jarred Kelenic

Jarred Kelenic was one of the hottest prospect names coming into the 2021 fantasy baseball draft season. A since-fired executive blatantly admitted that the 21-year-old was ready for the Show last season but that the team didn't call him up for service time reasons, leading some managers to feel that the Mariners would carry him on Opening Day to avoid potential grievances. At worst, he would be up once the team had guaranteed itself an extra year of control.

Kelenic was indeed summoned to Seattle just a month into the season, but his production to date has been far from stellar: .123/.197/.246 with two homers and two steals over 71 PAs. Is he a bust, or has he simply run into some bad luck to begin his career?

We have very little data with which to answer that question, as he has never recorded more than 218 PAs at a single MiLB stop and didn't have organized games at all in 2020. What we do have suggests that Kelenic is better than his current production, but he might not be the superstar that the "LOLMets" crowd proclaimed at the time of the Robinson Cano trade. There's nothing wrong with rostering a good fantasy player, but moving him may also make sense for a great price tag.

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The Good Stuff

Scouts have always liked the sixth overall pick in the 2018 Amateur Draft, and most scouting reports you read about him include average or better grades in every tool. For instance, take a look at his FanGraphs scouting report:

That's major-league average in hitting, game power, and speed at age 21. The former two are projected to get even better in the future. He's also rated above-average in raw power already. Better yet, this report actually looks conservative compared to the one available at MLB.com:

That's a superstar in both fantasy and reality. Kelenic also intrigued fantasy managers with a breakout 2019 season on the farm, hitting 23 HR with 20 SB in 500 PAs split between three levels (Single-A, High-A, and Double-A), a feat that's even more impressive when you consider that he was young for each level.

Plate discipline is another feather in Kelenic's cap. Scouts rave about Kelenic's advanced approach that allows him to work walks without striking out often, something he has done at nearly every MiLB stop:

Outside of his 25.8 K% at High-A, Kelenic has never looked overwhelmed. The final numbers are his MLB rates, and they're backed by a 7.3 MLB SwStr%. Guys like that typically get off to strong starts in the big leagues, so why hasn't he?

The Downside

The simple answer is that his .122 BABIP is ridiculously low, but that doesn't mean that he will revert that to .300 and expect excellent production moving forward. Kelenic's recent MiLB and MLB numbers reveal some troubling trends for his future BABIP.

Kelenic appears to be a heavy fly ball guy, posting a FB% of 43.3 at Double-A over 92 PAs and 47.1% at the MLB level. His LD% was below average at both stops, coming in at 17.9% at Double-A and 15.7% for the Mariners. That's great news for his power projection, but it also plays a role in why guys like Joey Gallo and Rhys Hoskins consistently post BABIPs south of .300. His Triple-A statistics go the other way (18.2 FB%, 40.9 LD%), but the small sample size (29 PAs) and sheer flukiness of a 40.9 LD% suggest that they would have flipped over a larger sample.

Kelenic also seems to have a pop-up problem. He posted a 31 IFFB% at Double-A in 2019, 50% at Triple-A this season, and 16.7% thus far in his MLB career. You have to halve MiLB IFFB% numbers to get something on the scale MLB uses, but that's still a ton of BABIP-killing pop-ups considering how high Kelenic's FB% usually is.

You might think that a guy with Kelenic's speed could find base hits on ground balls, but Kelenic hasn't had any MLB hits that way yet. The reason why appears twofold. First, he's pulling 73.7% of his grounders and opposing defenses have shifted him in 40 of 48 opportunities. That's a bad combination. Second, Kelenic hasn't flashed plus speed yet with a Statcast Sprint of just 25.2 ft./sec. That's nearly two full ticks below the MLB average of 27 ft./sec. Kelenic's .246 BABIP at Double-A in 2019 could be a harbinger of things to come.

Nobody is so bad that they have a .122 BABIP true talent level, but Kelenic's Baseball Savant xStats suggest that he only deserves a .215 average and .388 xSLG on the year. That's better than his production to date, but it still won't move the needle in fantasy. His 91.3 mph average airborne exit velocity and 7.8% rate of Brls/BBE are both roughly average, so it's not like he's obliterating baseballs either.

The Verdict

We always want guys who offer power and speed even if we have to sacrifice a little average to get it. Scouts love Kelenic, and we have to remember that he won't turn 22 until July and consider the possibility that he's playing hurt considering that his speed has been nowhere near what was advertised. The Mariners still believe in him, hitting him leadoff in his big league debut and allowing him to maintain that position despite his struggles at the plate. Kelenic should still be a valuable long-term asset that managers in keeper and dynasty formats may wish to buy low on.

That said, there are holes in his game. He pulls too many grounders and hits a ton of fly balls, meaning that his average will probably hurt you even though he doesn't have a strikeout problem. Depending on how he ultimately deals with these issues, he may turn into more of a consistent big league regular than a star. There's nothing wrong with that trajectory in fantasy, especially since he appears locked into an important lineup role.

Considering that Kelenic is rostered in 73% of Yahoo! leagues, you have to decide whether his realistic upside is worth his current numbers in redraft formats. If yes, he's a Champ. If not, he's a Chump that somebody else probably values more highly than you do.

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