1:44 pm: Kelenic suffered a Grade 2 strain, reports Divish, which usually leads to a recovery period of three to six weeks.
1:21 pm: Sailors Prospectus Jarred Kelenic will be out of action after an MRI scan revealed a strain in his left adductor muscle, the team announced. Kelenic suffered the injury during Friday’s game against the White Sox.
No mention was made of a recovery schedule, other than GM Jerry Dipoto saying “we are relieved that the long-term outlook is positive. We all hope to see you back in the field in the near future. ” Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times estimated that Kelenic is likely to lose “a few weeks” of time, which would rule out any chance of Kelenic making it onto the Opening Day list. Kelenic hasn’t played a Triple-A ball in his brief professional career yet, and now it looks like he’ll actually start his 2021 season with Triple-A Tacoma.
Kelenic’s MLB debut date has been the subject of controversy in recent days, stemming from the infamous comments made by now former Mariners president / CEO Kevin Mather during a video speech to the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary Club in February. Mather openly discussed how the M’s had no intention of calling any of their young candidates from the alternate training site last season, and hinted that the team was planning to keep Kelenic and Logan Gilbert in Triple-A long enough this year for Mariners to gain an extra year of team control over their services. Kelenic and his agent later commented that he would have made his Seattle debut in 2020 if Kelenic had accepted a long-term contract extension that would have given M’s even more control over the team over Kelenic’s future.
A consensual choice as one of baseball’s top 10 prospects, 21-year-old Kelenic was the Mets ‘choice as the sixth overall choice of the 2018 draft, and the centerpiece of the Mariners’ return in the successful deal he sent Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz from Seattle to New York in December 2018. Trade already presents itself as a crucial moment in the history of the Mariners and will become even more impactful if Kelenic and Justin Dunn live up to high expectations.