The Wrong Question
You’re Jerry Dipoto. You’ve got a burgeoning farm system and an iffy big league roster. It’s not a shock that you’re in this position, but you’re constantly aware of the pressure to turn potential into major league production. How do you develop prospects during a pandemic? How do you balance developmental needs with maximizing the success of the big league club with financial forces? It’s a lot. About the last thing he’d need is his boss, erstwhile M’s president Kevin Mather, telling the entire world that the org is manipulating Jarred Kelenic’s service time to get an extra year of club control.
This is, to put it mildly, a tough spot. Mather essentially brags about it, saying that Kelenic would be up in late April. As detailed by Nathan at DomeandBedlam, Jerry’s response was to essentially question whether starting Kelenic in Tacoma (or Arkansas) is such an obvious violation of the letter or spirit of any rules – it’s quite rare for a player to debut in the majors with so few minor league at-bats and games, and that’s doubly true for a player drafted out of high school.
Maybe it’s the pressure, but Dipoto instantly shoots himself in the foot by arguing such a promotion would be essentially unprecedented in the past few decades (he seemed to use A-Rod’s 1994 debut as the exception that proved the rule). This, as several people instantly discovered, wasn’t true. Juan Soto made the Nats out of spring training as a teenager way back in 2018, and things seemed to work out – they even won the World Series in 2019, and Soto’s raked consistently. But is Kelenic really akin to the generational talent of Soto (who, let’s remember, was seen as the 2nd best Nats OF prospect back when he debuted!)? Luke Arkins at ProspectInsider examines that question, comparing the games and plate appearances for several prospects, from Tatito to Bryce Harper. He ends by arguing that Dipoto’s close to the situation, and thus has more of a sense of when a prospect’s ready than any of us reading news reports.
In a vacuum, I might agree with Arkins; it’s not that no prospects have debuted with so few at-bats, it’s that none of them debuted after a season without any official at-bats due to a global pandemic! However, we do not and could not live in a vacuum. We live in a world after Kevin Mather’s Hour of Candor went viral. Mather didn’t speculate, he flat out TOLD the Rotarians that Kelenic would be up in late April. Worse for Dipoto, Bob Nightengale’s interview with Kelenic and his agent not only confirms what Mather says, he goes further: Kelenic was offered a contract extension similar to the one Evan White got (but with more money), buying out his pre-arb/arb years and making the whole service clock argument moot. The M’s were perfectly prepared to let Kelenic make his debut in *2020* if he’d just sign a team-friendly contract. Caution is often warranted with Nightengale, but Ryan Divish confirmed the whole thing on the recent LookoutLanding podcast (which is well worth a listen).
Jerry Dipoto wants us to ask how we can be so sure that Kelenic’s ready. That’s the wrong question, because it’s one that Jerry himself was willing to answer affirmatively…a year ago. The M’s have been perfectly content to trot out a weaker big league team (Jose Marmolejos/Tim Lopes/Shed Long LF platoon) to keep Kelenic down. They’ve been caught red-handed essentially offering to trade an immediate big league promotion for a team-friendly deal that would hurt Kelenic’s leverage. They are not the first team to do so, and they likely won’t be the last. But they have to understand that they can’t get everyone to debate the perfectly-debatable question of Kelenic’s timeline in a post-Mather, post USA Today column, world.
The whole bit about keeping Kelenic down for 12-15 days to get another year of club control is about giving the team more leverage. It’s what we all expect teams to do, even after the Nats and Juan Soto showed it’s not literally required (which is a way many fans have come to see it). If Kelenic is all that Kelenic thinks he is, all of us would be happy – it would save Jerry’s job, the M’s would be compelling, and Kelenic would be the star he wants to be. Keeping him down those couple of weeks would knock several million off any long-term deal they’d offer. But to try and save those several million, they’ve royally pissed him off, making it less likely he’d sign a deal that…saved those several million. To sum up, the M’s saw Kelenic as their best option last year, but wouldn’t promote him in order to take away some contract leverage. They’ve been so utterly transparent that they’ve lost the leverage anyway.
Just as Kevin Mather flubbed the easiest question imaginable for an M’s exec (“Talk about Julio Rodriguez”), Dipoto flubbed the fall-out by talking about service time. The M’s desperately need to NOT talk about that right now, and to commit to fans that they take the longest playoff drought in US pro sports seriously. How hard would it be to say something anodyne like, “Jarred will show us when it’s time” or “We’ll have to wait and see” or something. Talking about his minor league at-bats let’s Mather’s statement that he would be ready in late April hang around, a juicy target for a future grievance or grist for the CBA negotiations in a few months. This is not a good sign, and not a good pattern. I swear I’ll talk about actual Mariners baseball stuff soon. I just haven’t stopped shaking my head at this franchise since last Sunday.
I haven’t stopped shaking my head about this franchise since 2002.
The incompetence of this organization never ceases to amaze me.
While I agree that it was the wrong question and could have been handled better, I don’t think this is entirely fair.
Jerry stated that the extension offer came in December of 2019 and included a minor league assignment. Jarred would have presumably had at least a couple of hundred PAs facing actual competition.
When the pandemic wiped out the minor league season, the alternative was the player pool facing the same arms repeatedly in a non-competitive environment.
Those minor league PAs that Jerry felt were vital before a promotion never happened, and when you look at guys like Jo Adell and Dylan Carlson (both drafted out of HS) with limited experience in AA/AAA struggle immensely, it isn’t hard to believe that not promoting him was the right decision…
And that starting him in the minors and allowing him to get those 200 or so PAs may still be best for player and team. I’m anticipating a June debut at the earliest, and yes, that would be convenient.
I don’t think anyone was more furious over Mather’s comments than Jerry (well, among Mariners personnel). But I don’t think there was likely a plan set in stone to promote him immediately after securing that year of control. I think that was more likely Mather just boasting like an arrogant jackass.
I’d also point out that while Soto was absolutely annihilating the minors and climbing the ladder at warp speed, he was seemingly promoted due to the decimation of Washington’s outfield corps. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had no intention of keeping him up when they promoted him and that he simply forced them to keep him there despite the limited experience. I don’t think there’s any question that he’s more of the exception than the norm.
But getting back to Marc’s main point, Jerry, ironically, would probably have been able to put this to rest by exercising the same patience he’s willing to show his prospects. “Jarred will show us when it’s time” would have been the perfect response.
But he chose the defensive route and here we are, still under the microscope and the center of negative attention. A day in the life of a Mariner fan.
Something else that I find incredibly ironic in all of this is that the Mariner prospect propaganda machine has been in full-swing since committing to the rebuild. It seems to serve as reassurance for the fans that they made the right decision to rebuild, and the progress of these prospects fuels everyone’s patience. “Just a little longer, you’re going to love where this leads!”.
That same message may have helped create this mess with Kelenic and service time. The entire organization has arguably shot themselves in the foot.
“Mariners Prospect Propaganda Machine”… that’s fittingly brilliant.
The M’s prospect propaganda machine is an interesting phenomenon in that there seems to be this 100%-certain belief that the M’s are going to call up these four or five “big” prospects in the next couple of years and “poof!” the Mariners turn into contenders.
All we have to do is look back in time:
In 1989, the Seattle Mariners had three future Hall of Fame players on their roster. Three. It took six years before they made the playoffs. Hell, they only had two winning seasons in those seasons before 1995.
Which is to say that Kelenic and Julio could be as good as Griffey and Edgar and it doesn’t guarantee anything. The team still needs to be competent in adding additional MLB talent.
Expecting a few prospects to come up and suddenly make the Mariners a perennial contender is Fool’s Gold. And we have plenty of history to tell us that several of these prospects aren’t going to pan out at all.
I’d also point out that while Soto was absolutely annihilating the minors and climbing the ladder at warp speed, he was seemingly promoted due to the decimation of Washington’s outfield corps. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had no intention of keeping him up when they promoted him and that he simply forced them to keep him there despite the limited experience. I don’t think there’s any question that he’s more of the exception than the norm.
Well, the really amazing players are always the exceptions (Griffey got zero at bats above AA, only 17 games at AA).
And, well, the M’s were basically a decimated OF corps last year, between bad MLB acquisitions (Smith, Gordon-Strange) and minor league detritus being shoved into the lineup (Marmolejos, Lopes, Long, etc.)- quite a few of the players playing OF being weak bat utility infielders playing out of position (so extra insulting, Kelenic is being kept down at the alternate site so some AAA minor league infielder with an MiLB OPS under .700 can show he doesn’t belong in MLB as a starting OFer, which is quite the GalaxyBrain concept).
Add in letting White flounder for 2020 at the plate (but playing Gold Glove defense because he actually belongs at the position) and frost the cake with Mather’s dumb comments and I kind of get Kelenic’s beef.
This is also why I think the M’s would have played Kelenic had they gotten the team friendly deal. Jerry probably knows Tim Lopes isn’t the second coming of Babe Ruth, doesn’t even belong in the OF for a good AAA team, and the M’s wouldn’t have been objectively worse in 2020 with a talented but struggling rookie instead of using utility infielders and dumpster diving failed prospects and suspects- and maybe Kelenic isn’t going to struggle too much. So eh, why not have TWO kids who might not be ready?
“Jarred will show us when it’s time” would have been the perfect response.
Yeah, even some “let’s see what he does in spring training, I’m excited to see it and I want kids to be passionate about wanting to make the team out of spring training” platitudes and you’re done.
And we have plenty of history to tell us that several of these prospects aren’t going to pan out at all.
Sure. The tough part is sustained excellence. Teams going through development cycles and getting pretty good isn’t remarkable. The system is designed to let MLB teams do that fairly easily and frequently. We’re not at sustained excellence yet.
Well, the really amazing players are always the exceptions (Griffey got zero at bats above AA, only 17 games at AA).
And, well, the M’s were basically a decimated OF corps last year, between bad MLB acquisitions (Smith, Gordon-Strange) and minor league detritus being shoved into the lineup (Marmolejos, Lopes, Long, etc.)- quite a few of the players playing OF being weak bat utility infielders playing out of position (so extra insulting, Kelenic is being kept down at the alternate site so some AAA minor league infielder with an MiLB OPS under .700 can show he doesn’t belong in MLB as a starting OFer, which is quite the GalaxyBrain concept).
First, Kelenic wasn’t dominating the way Soto was.
Second, Washington was firmly in contention at the time they called him up. Seattle needed a miracle to sneak in and never should have been as close as they came.
Had he signed the extension they might have called him up for the same reason they didn’t send White down: They seemed to value the MLB experience more than what the player pool offered for development.
Hopefully White doesn’t end up being a case study.
Kelenic’s done pretty well in the minors, but hasn’t been dominant like Soto. Of course, that’s a pretty high bar.
I like the idea, not just rhetorically, but as a basic approach to developing talent, that the player should tell the team through his performance when he’s ready to be on the ML roster.