‘This is it’: How Jarred Kelenic adjusted body and mind to live up to the hype
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Ken Rosenthal
Apr 26, 2023
He can identify the exact turning point, the moment he knew he finally could achieve something big. It wasn’t during that insane series at Wrigley Field when he went 5-for-9 with three homers, including a 482-foot shot to straightaway center. No, it was during the second week of December, at a batting cage in Pasadena, with no one watching but his new private hitting coaches and the young employee throwing him BP.
For the first time as a professional, Jarred Kelenic, 23, did not return to his native Wisconsin for the offseason. He spent most of his winter in Arizona, revamping his swing with Tim Laker, 53, his former hitting coach with the Mariners. Their time together included a brief trip to Pasadena to work with Laker’s mentor, Craig Wallenbrock, 76, the hitting guru known for reviving the career of J.D. Martinez and others.
The first four days of that visit, all Kelenic did was perform drills, hitting off a tee and flips, focusing on his movements without worrying about facing velocity. He wrote down notes to make sure he would remember everything he was thinking, everything the coaches were saying. On the fifth day, he finally took batting practice. And he knew. He knew right away.
“I’ll never forget the first swing,” Kelenic said.
Those close to Kelenic say he deserves most of the credit for his stunning breakout in the season’s first month, citing his perseverance, work ethic and willingness to change. But there was more to it, as there often is in baseball success stories, others who pointed him in the right direction.
The Mariners maintained their faith in Kelenic and allowed him to seek outside instruction, conceding they might not have all the answers. His agent, Nick Chanock of Wasserman Baseball, provided him with constant guidance and support, culminating in what Mariners general manager Justin Hollander called, “the best ‘agent-ing,’ beyond contract negotiations, I’ve seen in 15 years.”
Kelenic put in the work not just with the coaches, but also a sports psychologist who helped him understand he could not be perfect.
“He’s changed the way I look at life, the way I look at the game of baseball, the way I treat myself,” Kelenic said of the psychologist, whom he declined to name.
Kelenic, a left-handed hitting outfielder, was the sixth overall pick in the 2018 draft, taken by the Mets out of Waukesha (Wis.) West High School. Six months later, when he was still only 19, the Mariners made him their prize acquisition in a seven-player trade that cost them Edwin Díaz and enabled them to shed Robinson Canó’s contract. Kelenic became one of the game’s top prospects, turned down a six-year contract extension before playing in the majors and became the subject of a public squabble about service-time manipulation triggered by comments from the Mariners’ former president and CEO, Kevin Mather.
And then, he flopped.
In a combined 558 plate appearances with the Mariners in 2021 and ’22, Kelenic batted just .168 with an adjusted OPS 34 percent below league average. Hollander knows some in the game doubted whether Kelenic would ever succeed. Others said the team should trade him. The GM never could bring himself to such a conclusion. Neither could anyone else in the organization.
The Mariners knew what they saw Kelenic achieve in batting practice and off a Trajekt Arc pitching machine, a device that can project an image of any major-league pitcher onto a screen and simulate his release point and repertoire. Kelenic would pummel velocity, hit balls in ways others could not. He just needed to figure out how to do it in games.
Enter Laker and Wallenbrock. Fast forward to that day in December, the kid throwing batting practice, and the moment that provided the foundation for everything that has happened since. The .342 batting average, the 7 homers, the adjusted OPS (going into Tuesday’s game) 113 percent above league average. The breakout that until now was out of reach.
“The first pitch he threw me, I was a little late. And I just hit a rocket. It would have been over the third baseman’s head. I was like, ‘Oh my God. All right. Sick,’” said Kelenic, who, like most hitters, can project where balls would land when hitting in the cage. “Then the next pitch, he throws me a pitch down and in and I just scooped it for a homer to right-center. I didn’t pull it. It was right-center, closer to center.
“I literally looked at Craig and Tim — I even have it on video on my phone — and said, ‘I haven’t hit a ball like that in like two years. I haven’t been able to scoop a true flyball down and in like that and stay inside it.’ I was fired up. Right when that happened, I was like, ‘This is what it feels like to stay inside a baseball. This is what a quality swing feels like. This is it.’”
From the time Chanock began representing Kelenic early in 2022, he maintained a steady dialogue with Hollander. It is not unusual for agents and club officials to communicate on how to help players achieve their potential. In the case of Kelenic, the agent and GM shared a common purpose, “to bring out,” Hollander said, “what we all believed was this magnificent tool set.”
Last August, that effort was still a work in progress. Kelenic was back at Triple A, itching to return to the majors. Hollander, through Chanock, relayed a message to the player: We’re in a pennant race. We need every possible edge. Show you are the best player on the field, and we’ll call you back up.
Hollander kept his word. The Mariners brought back Kelenic on Sept. 21 and kept him on their roster through the postseason.
“Everyone believed he could be a successful major leaguer. Justin (Hollander) believed he could be a successful Mariner,” Chanock said.
Last fall, Kelenic still was not there. He went 6-for-16 with three doubles and a homer in his first four games back, then fell into another rut, ending the regular season in a 3-for-34 slide and going 2-for-17 in the postseason.
After the Astros eliminated the Mariners in the Division Series, Chanock called Hollander and told him Kelenic was committed to making adjustments. The two exchanged names of coaches outside the organization. Laker and Wallenbrock were the only ones on both their lists.
Kelenic had built a strong rapport with Laker during his rookie season in 2021. To some in the organization, Kelenic’s flaws were evident even then. But only when he reached bottom did he fully grasp the need to embrace change.
“I was somebody who played really well in high school, got drafted high, hit really well all throughout the minor leagues. Then for the first time ever I get to the big leagues and it’s like, Woah. I feel like I have a hole in my bat. I literally can’t hit anything.
“It was just so easy to abandon my plan. There was no trust factor at all. That is why I wanted to spend time with Tim and Craig. I wanted to start fresh. I wanted to learn from arguably the best to ever teach it. I wanted to learn how my body was working, how my swing actually works, just to have that knowledge so when you are 0-2 to a guy throwing 100 mph with 24 inches of sink, you’ve got an idea.”
The Mariners were comfortable with the arrangement, knowing Laker and Wallenbrock would teach what the team believed in, both mechanically and in a hitter’s approach. They were well-acquainted with Laker, a former major-league catcher who had been their hitting coach from 2019 to ’21. He departed after the team offered him a one-year contract instead of the multi-year deal he desired, and joined the Dodgers as a minor-league hitting coordinator.
The Dodgers, whose major-league hitting coach, Robert Van Scoyoc, also is a disciple of Wallenbrock’s, allow their coaches to work with players from other organizations in the offseason, a practice that is not uncommon in baseball. The collaboration gives rival players insight into how good their coaches are, and coaches insight into players.
Kelenic was an example of how such an arrangement potentially could work to a team’s benefit. The Dodgers pursued him in a trade last offseason, while he was working with Laker. The Mariners never seriously considered moving Kelenic, however. They would have been selling low. They needed offense. And they knew from their own hitting coach, Jarret DeHart, communicating with Laker, that Kelenic was making progress.
On Feb. 20, just after the start of spring training, Laker sent me a text. I had spoken to him last year for a story on his role in the revival of Matt Carpenter, and we had remained in touch.
“Just wanted to tell you to keep an eye on Jarred Kelenic this year,” Laker said. “We have been together in AZ for the last couple of months … I usually don’t get too overly excited about the guys I work with. But he looks like an All-Star right now, super consistent and repeatable swings every day. I think he is going to have a huge year.”
Kelenic remembers the first thing Wallenbrock told him during their initial meeting in the coach’s Pasadena office: There is no such thing as a perfect swing. The sooner you realize that, the sooner it will be a lot easier for you to make adjustments.
Kelenic took the words to heart. After moving from Wallenbrock’s office to the batting cage, he also took notes. At the start of the offseason, during his second session with Laker, he initially forgot what they had worked on the day before. The mental lapse upset him, and not because he was paying for the instruction. “They work with the best hitters in the game,” Kelenic thought to himself. “I’ve got to respect their time.”
The first step, Laker decided, was for Kelenic to get back to being an athlete. Kelenic had a wide stance. He was crouched down in his legs. His back elbow was high, creating tension in his shoulder. Kelenic did not have a pretty left-handed swing, the easy flow you see in hitters like Canó in his prime. He was simply trying to outmuscle the ball.
To develop more rhythm, Laker instructed Kelenic to drop his hands and drop into his back hip. Kelenic also started performing a drill Laker learned from Paul Goldschmidt while serving as the Diamondbacks’ hitting coach in 2017-18. Dubbed the “white-line drill,” it helped Kelenic with what he considered his most important adjustment, the one all great hitters master, staying inside the ball.
“They flip balls on the inner white line and all I’m trying to do is hit it to center field or just to the right of the batter’s eye, trying to hit high fly balls and keep it true,” Kelenic said. “The ball is going to tell you everything you need to know if you’re doing it right. If you’re around the ball, you’re going to hook it or hit it on the ground. If you’re inside, you’re going to hit the high fly ball.”
A change in bats also helped Kelenic. On Jan. 8, officials from Marucci’s Baseball Performance Lab visited the Mariners’ spring-training facility in Peoria, Az. Kelenic initially was reluctant to attend the bat-fitting session, calling his father on the way to the complex and telling him there was “no way in hell” he would switch to the hockey-puck knob favored by Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado and others. But once he tried the hockey-puck knob, he recorded an average exit velocity of 107 mph on 10 batted balls, the highest the lab has ever recorded in such a session, according to its founder, Liam Mucklow.
The puck knob brings the center of mass closer to the player’s hands, making it easier for Kelenic to stay inside the ball than he did with his original, end-loaded model. When he resumed the session with his original bat, he could not consistently find the barrel. When he went back to the puck, he started hitting rockets again. He now uses his original model in batting practice to handicap himself, like a hitter swinging with a donut in the on-deck circle. The puck model is his gamer.
Shortly after his session with the lab, Kelenic experienced another eureka moment in his quest to improve, receiving a tip from Mookie Betts while the two hit at the same facility in Arizona. Betts told Kelenic to get his hands inside the white chalk line, so they would be in the proper position for any pitch. “It wasn’t like a big teaching moment. He just kind of said it,” Kelenic said. “I was like, ‘oh my gosh, this makes all the sense in the world.’”
By then, Laker had started to correct another problem: Kelenic’s swing path. Flat and horizontal, the path was good for hitting fastballs up in the zone, problematic on breaking balls down. Kelenic also would throw his top hand to the barrel too aggressively, like a ping-pong player coming over the top with his forehand. The result was too many top-spin groundballs to the pull side.
By getting the barrel up and more vertical, Kelenic is able to stay inside the ball and use the whole field, as well as keep the bat in the zone longer. The new path also helps him match the plane of the ball, enabling him to adjust downward and scoop off-speed pitches at the bottom of the zone.
Kelenic made other changes as well. He is using a more upright posture, which helps him avoid chasing off-speed offerings below the zone. He also is landing in a more centered position, allowing him to gain ground moving forward, making it easier to adjust to whatever pitch is thrown.
Put it all together, and Kelenic is a different hitter. On Sunday, he hit a first-pitch slider off Jack Flaherty for an opposite-field homer, no easy feat at T-Mobile Park in April. Tuesday night in Philadelphia, he went 3-for-4 with a home run and double, all of his hits coming off left-handers. He has hit three homers in his last three games, and five of his seven overall have been to center or the opposite field.
“Honestly, for me, the physical stuff was really important. It really helped,” said the Mariners’ DeHart, who was the team’s assistant hitting coach under Laker and replaced him in the head job. “But more than anything, the mental side, where he’s at right now, in terms of how he has matured with his approach, it’s really remarkable.
“He understands his swing now. He knows how to make adjustments. He has a foundation to get back to, a path to follow as opposed to being in this constant search mode.”
The exchange took place after a game late in the 2021 season, when Laker was still the Mariners’ hitting coach. Kelenic, after going hitless, began venting to the coach, unable to contain his frustration.
“Why can’t I hit here?” Kelenic said. “I’ve raked everywhere I’ve been.”
Laker started to laugh.
“This is the big leagues, man,” he said. “You’re facing the best. I know for damn sure they’re better than the kids you were facing in Wisconsin.”
For the better part of two seasons, failure ate at Kelenic. The same intensity he showed in his work and preparation sometimes spilled out in his emotions. Kelenic would chirp at umpires and occasionally break a bat out of sight, creating an impression of immaturity.
After the Mariners demoted him last Aug. 11, he took a step that might be as meaningful to his career as any adjustment he made with Laker and Wallenbrock. He began seeing a sports psychologist.
His agent, Chanock, recommended the idea. Kelenic embraced it after the two discussed how common it was for star players to use such specialists, how it was normal, a show of strength.
The decision, Kelenic said, transformed him, enabled him start seeing the game differently. He always understood the old baseball aphorism, that a hitter could fail seven out of 10 times and still qualify as a success. But the psychologist helped him reframe the equation.
“One thing I worked extremely hard on with him and with my family and everybody was that in baseball, when there is that much negativity and that much failure, the times that you succeed, in your mind you need to exaggerate it just to outweigh the negativity,” Kelenic said.
“If you go 1-for-4, the three times you failed that game, a strikeout, flyout, whatever, that one hit needs to feel like three or four, just to break even. (Last Wednesday) is a prime example. I was 1-for-4, had a nice hit up the middle. That hit to me when I left the ballpark, in my mind it felt like I went 5-for-5.
“Granted, we lost. But it’s all about perspective and how you look at things. In the past, I was an absolute perfectionist. I still am to a certain degree. But when you fixate over the negativity and trying to be perfect in this game, it’s just going to chew you up and spit you out. There is just way too much negativity to last.”
The difference in him now is noticeable, to his teammates, to his coaches, to his general manager. Hollander said Kelenic is displaying the short memory common in great hitters, maintaining his focus no matter what might happen in a pitch or at-bat. His newfound command of the batter’s box even extends to his use of the one timeout per at-bat allotted to hitters under baseball’s new rules. If Kelenic needs to re-set, he will simply step out, then lock right back in.
“I haven’t seen anybody in the league use the timeout more effectively than I’ve seen him use it from Day One of spring training,” Hollander said. “It’s been really impressive to watch him navigate the mental side of the game.”
The season is not even a month old. Kelenic must prove he is capable of sustaining success. But at 23, he already has experienced so much, as a top draft pick, a hyped trade acquisition, a service-time poster boy, an early flop.
That first swing in Pasadena changed everything. That was the moment he started to believe.
“I know this works now,” Kelenic said. “I need to just trust it and go out and do it every single day.”
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