Surprising Rangers call-up may be a better player than his stat line indicates

When the news came across the wire that the Texas Rangers had selected the contract of Jarred Kelenic from Round Rock and optioned second baseman Josh Smith to Triple-A, it seemed surprising. But upon further inspection, it is a move that could very well be worth taking to shake up this dormant offense.

Kelenic's basic stats are very underwhelming. Still, if you dig a little deeper with the help of Statcast, there is a silver lining about the 27-year-old former first-round draft pick of the New York Mets.

Jarred Kelenic has largely been viewed as a bust, but he can't be worse than what the Rangers were getting from Josh Smith

In 12 games with the Express, Kelenic has hit .370/.463/.674. The sample size is small with just 50 at-bats, but his OPS is a hefty 1.051 with 3 dingers and 11 RBI. Yes, it does seem a bit desperate, but this team needs to do something different, and this bold move certainly qualifies.

Kelenic's career slash is an unimpressive .211//.283/.374 over 426 career big league games and 1,500 MLB at-bats. His best season came with the Mariners in 2022, when he hit 11 homers and knocked in 49 runs with a .746 OPS and 2.1 bWAR. Otherwise, if you look at the back of his baseball card, he has been mediocre at best.

Texas Rangers minor league guru Scott Lucas notes that Kelenic's stats may not be as dire as they appear upon first glance. Lucas argues that Kelenic has had an unusual amount of bad luck over his relatively short career, using advanced Statcast metrics. He notes, "I've found discussions of how Kelenic's MLB Statcast data has been promising, and he's had dreadful luck in terms of expected average and slugging versus actual results." Several numbers prove he is on to something.

Kelenic's xwOBA, xSLG%, average exit velocity, barrel %, hard-hit rate, and LA sweet spot % are all in the excellent range of Stacast's modality. The one concerning stat is is 37.1% whiff rate, which is among the worst of those measured.

For example, if we go back to 2024 when Kelenic racked up 449 plate appearances with the Atlanta Braves, his hard hit rate of 45.2% ranked in the 74th percentile, his 38.2% launch angle sweet spot percentage was good for an 84th percentile performance, and the two allowed him to post a .424 xSLG, which was slightly above average as a 58th percentile mark.

In other words, if Kelenic had just had an ounce of luck and come closer to his expected numbers based on advanced metrics, he would be viewed differently than he is by the basic slash line statistics he has turned in thus far in his career.

We were all glad to get Josh Smith back from a rough illness, but the bottom line is he just hasn't produced even when healthy. Big league baseball can be a rough business (ask Sam Haggerty), but Chris Young and Skip Schumaker are going to do whatever they can to put this team in the best position to succeed.

Shumaker has already said that he plans to use Kelenic in left field against right-handed pitchers primarily because he slugs .398 against right-handers versus .300 against lefties. It also means that Wyatt Langford is going to get plenty of run in center for the time being.

Unfortunately, that likely means that fan-favorite "little rascal" Alejandro Osuna will be impacted the most by the move. No matter what Osuna does, he can't seem to get a full-on shot at playing every day.

To be clear, no one is expecting Kelenic to come up and maintain his outrageous slash from Triple-A, but he could be a guy who gives the lineup a little more pop. Even after Friday's 9-run, 13-hit awakening, they clearly need something to keep things headed in the right direction.

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