The Rangers released outfielder Jarred Kelenic on July 26, closing out a brutal stretch that saw him bounce from the White Sox to Texas and now back to the open market, again. It's his second release in as many months, and for a guy who was once the centerpiece of one of baseball's biggest trades, the fall has been steep.
The news broke Sunday night that Texas had cut Kelenic loose.
Kelenic hit.425 OPS with just 1 hit and 2 walks over 10 plate appearances in 7 games with the Rangers, spending most of July buried at Triple-A Round Rock. Texas had actually signed him to back-to-back minor league deals after he was DFA'd once already, called him up to the 26-man roster in mid-June, then designated him for assignment again before this release. That's a lot of paperwork for a guy who barely got a look.
Zoom out to the full season and it's more of the same story. Across 69 total plate appearances split between the White Sox and Rangers, Kelenic hit just.213/.304/.295 — no pop, no consistency, nothing that screams big-league everyday player. The frustrating part is his Triple-A numbers tell a totally different story:.298/.403/.571 over 227 plate appearances at that level. He can still rake against minor league pitching. He just can't stick in the show.
It's a rough continuation of a career that started with sky-high expectations. The Mets took Kelenic 6th overall in 2018 and gave him a $4.5 million bonus, then flipped him to Seattle that December in the blockbuster that sent Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz to New York. Kelenic was the centerpiece return, ranked as high as the 4th-best prospect in all of baseball heading into 2021. He was supposed to be a franchise cornerstone in Seattle. Instead he's turned into an outfielder who can't hold a roster spot two teams in a row.
Kelenic just turned 27 on July 16, so this isn't a case of a guy running out of physical tools — he's still in his prime window and can play all 3 outfield spots. Some team will almost certainly take a flier on him given the pedigree and the gaudy Triple-A line, but the pattern is becoming impossible to ignore. Whatever's breaking down between his minor league dominance and his big-league performance, nobody's figured out how to fix it yet.