Seattle Mariners: Sending Jarred Kelenic to Triple-A is the right move
Over the weekend the Seattle Mariners demoted struggling outfielder Jarred Kelenic. While disappointing, its also the right thing to do to get him back on the right track.
Seattle Mariners outfielder Jarred Kelenic is struggling mightily at the plate and looking for answers.
It seems like everyone has answers. In real life, in baseball life, in everything that you do, someone has the answer and they’re without a doubt more than often not the right answer. But you might try whatever it is that someone told you to see if it works because you surely don’t have the right answer.
That’s Jarred Kelenic right now. Ironically, the vicious cycle that Kelenic is currently in, is something we’ve all gone through in whatever it is that we go through in life. Productivity = confidence = productivity = confidence = productivity. It’s called momentum and it’s something that Kelenic sorely needs.
Healthy success is measured, based on where you started and what you started with to where you are today. The most dysfunctional view of success is by comparing yourself to those around you. Yet team sports feeds that dysfunction constantly.
The Seattle Mariners are the perfect example of this. Julio Rodriguez started off terribly with Kelenic and then a shift happened and J-Rod started to improve massively (see momentum cycle above), but Kelenic didn’t, he got worse. Failing to produce = self-doubt = failing to produce = shame = failing to produce = comparing to others = failing to produce = fix everything = failing to produce. The failure cycle.
Turning it around
Here’s what Jarred needs, not that I actually know; I’m no different than the armchair social media hype myself and how expert I am at knowing baseball stuff. He needs to feed the momentum cycle. His public comments are all related to how he knows he needs to make this move to Triple-A and build some momentum. Kelenic wanted to report to the Seattle Mariners’ Tacoma affiliate immediately, but the team said to reset over the weekend and report on Tuesday.
This will be good for him. I think about the creative moves that teams have done in the past to help troubled hitters find their ability. They sent All-Star caliber players down to the bottom reaches of the minor league system to get the struggling player into that momentum cycle and break the failure cycle. But also to escape the constant comparison. That’s what Kelenic needs and what he’s about to get.
Realistic comparisson
So many are ready to write off the 22-year-old, former top prospect, who now has over 450 plate appearances at the big league level. While we want to discourage young Kelenic from comparing himself it’s okay for us to hypothesize. Who is who?
Player A
PA = 469
K% = 34.5
BB% = 6.2
wRC+ = 76
HR = 12
RBIs = 44
SBs = 12
OPS = .672
Player B
PA = 472
K% = 29.9
BB% = 9.5
wRC+ = 70
HR = 17
RBI = 53
SBs = 10
OPS = .595
Here’s your answer. Player A is Byron Buxton and player B is Jarred Kelenic.
Comp credit = @Zachleft on twitter. Confirmed Data = Baseball Reference
Baseball is the ultimate imperfect sport, which is why even a Perfect Game is so still so far from perfect unless a pitcher throws 81 strikes and 0 balls with 27 Ks. It’s a game of events. The events are created through a series of foundational behaviors that either result in an event that is defined by success or failure. Kelenic isn’t going to Triple-A to fix the events, he’s going to fix and build up the foundation of behaviors and that will be good for him.
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Joe Swenson is a writer, author, playwright, screenplay writer, and much much more. Follow him on Twitter @JoeSwenson15