The New York Yankees signed former Mets first-round pick Jarred Kelenic to a minor-league contract on Saturday, adding outfield depth for the stretch run and sending the 27-year-old to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.
Kelenic became a free agent earlier this week after the Texas Rangers designated him for assignment and he declined an outright assignment to Triple-A Round Rock. The Yankees were the latest club willing to take a low-cost look at a player who once ranked among baseball’s top prospects.
New York selected Kelenic sixth overall out of Waukesha West High School in Wisconsin in the 2018 draft and signed him for $4.5 million.
Six months later, the Mets packaged him to Seattle in the December 2018 trade that brought Robinson Canó and closer Edwin Díaz to Queens. At the time, the deal looked like a steal for the Mariners; Kelenic quickly climbed prospect lists and debuted in the majors in 2021.
The results never matched the hype. In 443 big-league games across parts of six seasons with the Mariners, Braves, White Sox and Rangers, Kelenic has hit .211 with a .654 OPS, 50 home runs and 162 RBIs.
This year, he batted .219 with one homer and six RBIs in 36 games between Chicago and Texas.
The left-handed hitter has repeatedly mashed in the minors—this season he slashed .310/.408/.584 with 13 homers and 17 stolen bases in Triple-A, including a .373 average and 1.102 OPS in 37 games at Round Rock—but those numbers have not translated against major-league pitching.
For the Yankees, the signing is organizational insurance rather than an imminent promotion. Cody Bellinger, Trent Grisham and Spencer Jones form the regular outfield, with Heliot Ramos in a reserve role and Jasson Domínguez at Triple-A.
Aaron Judge is working back from a rib injury and could return in September. Kelenic can play all three outfield spots and offers a left-handed bat if injuries or roster crunch create an opening.
It is a familiar late-career chapter for a player once viewed as a future star.
After bouncing from Seattle to Atlanta and then through repeated minor-league deals with the White Sox and Rangers, Kelenic now gets another chance in the organization that first drafted him—only this time in the Bronx system, 90 miles from the team that originally chose him.
Whether he can finally turn Triple-A production into a lasting major-league role remains the same question that has followed him since 2021.
