The Seattle Mariners will be dealing with the consequences of outgoing President Kevin Mather’s comments to a local rotary club for a while, and that includes trying desperately to unlock one of Mather’s loudest bells.
One of Mather’s most important comments concerned the term of service of candidate Jarred Kelenic, one of the most valued candidates in all of baseball. Speaking to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club, Mather admitted that the team had offered Kelenic an extension of the long-term contract that would delay the player’s entry into the agency for up to three years. The offer was reportedly rejected.
Mather also revealed that Kelenic would be promoted to the majors and become the team’s starting left field player in April, just enough of a wait to limit Kelenic’s length of service and delay his agency by a year. Essentially, the Mariners would have seven years of team control over Kelenic instead of six.
Taken together, the implications are obvious. The Mariners believe Kelenic is already good enough to start playing in the main ones, but are willing to give up a month as a rookie in exchange for a year as a seventh-year player. Mather openly admitted that his team did this:
“If our major league team had an outbreak of COVID, or injuries, and we had to call people from the taxi squad, we were a little short of players. Because there was no chance that you would see these young players at T-Mobile Park [in 2020]. We were not going to put them on the list of 40 men, we were not going to start the service schedule. “
And now the Mariners have begun to claim that Mather’s comments were not accurate, because it remains in their interest, much to the dismay of the player himself.
GM Mariners and Potential Customer Disagree
The second act of the Mariners’ drama Kelenic began when general manager Jerry Dipoto was doing damage control after Mather’s resignation.
Calling Mather’s comments a “one-person interpretation,” Dipoto did his best to apologize to the impressive number of players that Mather offended and distanced the team from the man who was no longer employed, according to USA Today.
That meant trying to convince the public that when Mather was saying that Kelenic was on the right track to get an MLB job, he was wrong. Dipoto would have insisted that Kelenic’s promotion would be a baseball decision based on the prospect’s development. Dipoto characterized Kelenic as a player with little experience above the class A ball, whom the Mariners were really doing a favor in keeping the minors.
From USA Today:
“I’m not sure how you interpret the manipulation of service time with a 21-year-old who played [21] games above A-ball ”, says Dipoto, “and that has not yet reached 800 plate appearances as a professional player. This would be something unprecedented that has not happened in three decades. Although Jared is an extremely talented player, we want to make sure that he checked the boxes in development, because that is our responsibility, not only for the good of the Mariners, but for the benefit of Jarred Kelenic. ”
It should be noted that Kelenic would have appeared in several games above the level of Class A last year if the coronavirus pandemic had not swallowed up the secondary league season. Instead, Kelenic spent 2020 playing on the Mariners’ alternative site, where his development received rave reviews.
It took less than a day for Kelenic’s camp to respond to Dipoto’s insistence that he was not ready for the MLB. Kelenic and his agent told USA Today that Kelenic had heard several times that he would have made his MLB debut last year if he had signed the Mariners’ extension offer:
“It was communicated to Jarred that if he had signed that contract, he would have debuted last year,” said Brodie Scoffield, who represents Kelenic. “It was very clear to Jarred – then and now – that his decision not to call him was based on length of service.
“There is no doubt that if he signed that contract, he would be in the big leagues.”
Said Kelenic, who spent the past year at the Mariners’ alternative camp: “It wasn’t communicated to me just once. This has been said to me several times. This is the honest truth of God. It got old. ”
Dipoto declined to comment on Kelenic’s claims.
So now we have an executive saying that a player needs extra spice, while that player says he has been told he is ready for the big leagues, as long as he is willing to sacrifice part of his future earning potential. Of course, only one of these sides is asking you to believe a series of premises that some would say are … doubtful.
Here’s what Jerry Dipoto wants you to believe
Let’s just list what Dipoto seems to expect everyone to believe when he says that Kelenic is not ready for the MLB and the Mariners are not trying to get another year off their main candidate.
1. Kevin Mather is a liar
This will be a familiar refrain for the Mariners and everyone at MLB. Mather’s frankness can be seen as a confirmation of what the MLB Players ‘Association has insisted for years, that clubs manipulate players’ service time not to improve their lineups, but to maximize their financial control. The number of key candidates making their debut in late April over the years leaves little doubt that the MLB does this, and has already resulted in controversy in the past.
After Mather’s comments surfaced, the MLBPA issued a statement claiming that they represented an “unfiltered view” of how teams operate, while former All-Star Josh Donaldson implicit they would assist players immensely in future service time complaints.
2. Jarred Kelenic and his agent are liars
If what Kelenic said is true, it is quite obvious that the Mariners are playing the service time game with an MLB-ready player. Publicly reducing one of the most important players in your organization would be a bold move, but avoiding having to pay it in advance can be worthwhile for small-market browsers.
3. Mariners failed to develop Kelenic last year
It is quite interesting that Dipoto traces Kelenic’s history in the secondary league, but that does not mean that what he said is inaccurate. Kelenic has only 92 plate appearances at the Double-A level and none at the Triple-A level. He was decent in those 92 appearances on the plate (0.857 OPS), but it usually takes more spice for a player to make a leap in MLB.
However, Dipoto’s comments conveniently ignore the face that Kelenic was seasoned in last year, just not in the typically quantifiable way. Even ignoring the endorsements Kelenic received for his game on the Mariners’ alternate website, characterizing him as a player whose development essentially stopped after 2019 would be misleading or an admission of an impressive failure by the Mariners.
4. Every potential lead analyst is wrong
Let’s just take a look at how all the prominent prospective appraisers characterize Kelenic’s ETA for majors.
Obviously, there is a difference between the opening day of 2021, late April 2021 and August 2021 when it comes to development, but everyone who followed Kelenic or talked to scouts about him believes that 2021 is his year, and remember Mather said that the Kelenic ETA was in April 2021 at least. Athletic’s Keith Law even noted that Kelenic probably would have debuted in 2020 with a full season in the minor leagues.
5. Juan Soto does not exist
This may be just an obstacle, but Dipoto is wrong when he says that an MLB promotion is unprecedented for a 21-year-old player who played just 21 games above A-ball and saw only 800 professional plate matches.
Washington Nationals star Juan Soto did almost exactly that in 2018. When the Nationals promoted him due to an excess of injuries, Soto played eight games above the class A ball and had seen 512 appearances in the total number of plates in the smaller ones. And he was 19 years old.
What happened next is well-known among baseball fans; Soto achieved stardom and is now possibly the most feared hitter in baseball. But think about how much nationals would have benefited if they had waited until April 2019 to promote it.
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