As a former highly-touted prospect and 2018’s sixth overall draft pick, 25-year-old outfielder Jarred Kelenic hasn’t quite lived up to the hype. And this has really been true for a while now, even prior to his time with the Braves.
Kelenic has shown spurts. In 2023 with Seattle, he looked like a potential legitimate MLB player, posting a 109 wRC+ with 11 homers at 23-years-old. But frustratingly, that season was cut a bit short, given Kelenic injured himself in July of that year when he fractured his foot kicking a water cooler in the dugout after a strikeout. That little tantrum allowed him to play in only 105 games that season.
Even his first year with the Braves in 2024, Jarred Kelenic showed some real promise (after Atlanta acquired him from Seattle that previous winter). Sure, it was obvious he was really only effective versus right-handed pitching (41 wRC+ vs. LHP in ‘24), but there were moments he came up big for the Braves – like when he hit .304 with six home runs (147 wRC+) during the month of June last year.
But all in all, it was obvious Kelenic wasn’t the long-term guy at left field for Atlanta. The Jurickson Profar signing made that pretty clear.
To begin 2025, the Braves understandably decided to go with a Kelenic/Bryan De La Cruz platoon in the outfield until Acuña arrived, a situation that quickly turned disastrous when Jurickson Profar was suspender for PED use. De La Cruz barely hit and was DFA’d last month (the Yankees claimed him on May 1), and Kelenic produced just a .167 AVG and two homers in 23 games (48 wRC+) before finally being optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett on April 28. And we won’t even re-hash the whole Kelenic/Brian Snitker/RAJ drama (although Kelenic is not really to blame for any of that anyway).
So here we are, nearly halfway into May. Finally, there’s a positive update on Acuna, who has begun his rehab assignment. We’ve seen how productive Eli White has been in his fill-in role as he’s up to a 124 wRC+ in 33 games so far. The Alex Verdugo pick-up appears to have been a smart one too – he provided the walk-off RBI in Monday’s win, and though his numbers aren’t as impressive as White’s (82 wRC+), Verdugo has been a much-better option at lead-off compared to what the team was doing prior.
If you remember, at the Trade Deadline back in 2019, the Braves traded outfielder Travis Demeritte and prospect pitcher Joey Wentz to the Tigers in exchange for reliever Shane Greene. Like Kelenic, at the time Demeritte was a former first-round pick that hit extremely well in the minors but just couldn’t consistently put it together in the majors. Back then, he never actually made it to the majors with the Braves, despite hitting .286 with 20 homers in Triple-A in the first-half of ’19.
The Demeritte-for-Greene trade was ultimately a success for the Braves. Greene, who was dominating as Detroit’s closer that season, ended up becoming a main piece in Atlanta’s bullpen, finishing the season with 10 holds and a 4.01 ERA / 3.94 FIP in 24.2 innings as a Brave. It was a positive for Demeritte too as he made his deserved MLB debut with the Tigers and played in 48 games that year (.225 AVG / 66 wRC+).
Could Anthopoulos make a similar deal with Jarred Kelenic this season?
While not exactly the primary root of the team’s issues so far in 2025, the Braves bullpen is currently a bottom-five group in terms of WAR (0.1), and bottom-10 in ERA (3.62). I was pro-Raisel Iglesias earlier in the season when it was evident he was struggling, but now he’s 16.1 innings in and his ERA (6.06) and FIP (6.29) are still bloated. It’s more likely Iglesias returns to his 2024 ways, but it’s going to take more than just him improving to turn Atlanta’s bullpen around. Even the ‘pen’s current ERA leader (1.89), Daysbel Hernandez, has at times struggled so far this season, averaging 5.21 BB/9 at the moment.
As far as Jarred Kelenic goes, he’s been hitting much better in Gwinnett since being optioned, sporting a .280 AVG with four XBHs in 13 games with the Stripers. He’s young and “toolsy” enough that there still should be a reasonable amount of hope left that he can one day become something close to what he once was projected to be.
With the Braves finally back at .500 for the first time since Opening Day, it’s clear that, despite such a terrible start, this is still a playoff-contending team, and a buying one come the July 31st trade deadline. With Acuna coming back soon, and Profar as well some time next month, the team should have quite a surplus when it comes to outfielders. Maybe, like in 2019, trading one of them could net the Braves a nice bullpen piece for the stretch run.
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Photo: Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire