Braves become the latest team to give up on former Mariners super-prospect

From a Seattle Mariners vantage point, this one lands with a thud of familiarity. Atlanta just removed Jarred Kelenic from its 40-man roster, an outright move that nudges him toward minor-league free agency. For Mariners fans it reopens an old file: the talent was real, the flashes were real, but the clock kept running out on consistency. 

Seattle’s side of the story starts with the 2023–24 salary crunch. In December of 2023, the Mariners shipped Kelenic, Marco Gonzales, and Evan White to the Braves for right-handers Jackson Kowar and Cole Phillips, a move that cleared dollars and reset some roster risk. It was bittersweet — moving a former top prospect and a beloved innings-eater, but it made pragmatic sense for a club trying to keep its powder dry. 

Mariners fans see familiar story as Braves outright Jarred Kelenic

The expectations around Kelenic didn’t come from nowhere. He arrived in Seattle as a headliner of the 2018 blockbuster that sent Robinson Canó and Edwin Díaz to the Mets, with Seattle also receiving prospects Justin Dunn and Gerson Bautista, plus veterans Jay Bruce and Anthony Swarzak (and cash changing hands). That trade became the symbol of the Mariners’ hard reset and put Kelenic, an outfielder with loud tools, squarely in the middle of the franchise’s future. 

For a minute in 2023, the payoff looked close. Kelenic finished that season at .253/.327/.419 with 11 homers in 105 games — but a self-inflicted setback (a broken foot from kicking a cooler in July) halted momentum and left Seattle wondering what might’ve been down the stretch. Mariners fans remember both parts: the progress and the pause. 

Atlanta gave him runway. In 2024, Kelenic posted a .231/.286/.393 slash line with 15 homers — playable, but replacement level at best. But 2025 brought another slide: a .167/.231/.300 slash and a .531 OPS in the majors, plus a .595 OPS at Triple-A Gwinnett after the demotion. Those are the kinds of numbers that force difficult decisions, even for teams invested in the upside. 

From a Mariners fan perspective, the takeaway isn’t schadenfreude — it’s validation. Jerry Dipoto’s 2023 decision to convert risk (and salary obligations) into flexibility looks more defensible with time, and Seattle hasn’t been the team eating the growing pains since. Kelenic is still only 26 and will almost certainly get another shot; someone will bet on the bat speed, the athlete, the pedigree. But for now, Atlanta joins Seattle on the list of clubs that couldn’t unlock the every-day version Mariners fans were promised back in 2018.