Seattle Mariners: Ripple Effects of the Jarred Kelenic Situation
Joe Swenson
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The Ripple Effects
Kelenic is still only 21 years old and turns 22 during the season. Most fans don’t care that it’s a business for the players as much as the team. They also don’t care about the strategies at play, referenced earlier. What the M’s faithful does want is a trip to the postseason. His agent is firing up Seattle Mariners fans based on just a year-and-a-half of minor league experience.
As desperate as they are to make the playoffs, Schofield has stirred some backlash. The service time dispute has turned some Mariners fans against Kelenic. They are reminded of Alex Rodriguez. That in the end, A-Rod wasn’t a team player (despite being part of the last Mariners playoff team). These specific fans cling to the romantic idea that players should want to make Seattle their hometown and stay for their entire career, like Edgar Martinez.
The reality is Schofield has pushed these two versions of Seattle fans against each other in a war of ‘what ifs,’ conjecture, and strategically requiring Dipoto to commit and back that commitment with reason.
This cat and mouse game is likely to be played out again next year with Julio Rodriguez and/or Emerson Hancock. The fans lose because we have this innate desire to want to be on the right side of the “I Told You So” social media circus that exists in our world today.
The comparison we don’t want
A classic example of a team that succumbed to a highly touted prospect that never made it to an elite level of play was the Atlanta Braves and Jason Heyward. He was called up at 20 years old on April 5, 2010. In 2010 Spring training, there was lots of noise about a young outfielder who could hit the ball 500 feet. In fact, he smashed the windshield of one of the coach’s cars in the parking lot to prove it. However, he’s never lived up to the hype.