The Seattle Mariners have sent Jarred Kelenic, an outfielder who was a consensus top 10 prospect coming into 2021, down to AAA Tacoma, it was announced today.
Kelenic, 21, was the sixth overall pick in the 2018 draft by the New York Mets, and went to the Mariners in the Edwin Diaz/Robinson Cano trade. Kelenic was #4 in the pre-season top 100 rankings on both the Baseball America and MLB Pipeline lists, while Baseball Prospectus had him at #6.
There was a certain amount of controversy surrounding Kelenic and the Mariners’ decision to have him start the season in the minors, due to the (not unreasonable) belief that the M’s were opting to start him in the minors in order to manipulate service time and gain an extra year of team control.