In case you missed it amid the flood of offseason activity, the White Sox signed outfielder Jarred Kelenic to a minor league deal at the beginning of the year. The agreement contains multitudes.
As a non-roster invitee, Kelenic will arrive to Arizona next month simply trying to make the team, regardless of role. But the Sox outfield depth chart remains so hollowed out that a former sixth-overall pick, and former consensus top-10 prospect once projected to be a middle-of-the-order force, easily looks like one of the more compelling options scheduled to be at Camelback Ranch. At the same time, the 26-year-old hit .213/.286/.309 in Triple-A last year.
So again, just making the team is the focus here.
"I would call it a down year," Kelenic said in a Zoom session with media on Wednesday. "But there's a lot of things...there were things that came out that were good. I'm looking forward to--I can't wait for spring training to start because I feel like a lot of the work that I put in this offseason has propelled me to a lot more consistent position to hit, and I think that I'm excited to test it out."
Since he's a Wisconsin native, there will be plenty of mention that Kelenic was part of the White Sox Area Codes team as a prep prospect, and the lefty-swinging Midwesterner went so far as to call Chicago his favorite MLB city. Perhaps a more relevant datapoint at this time is that Kelenic resides near Nashville, and thus has already shared multiple batting practice sessions with White Sox hitting coordinator Ryan Fuller.
"It's somebody that just knows how the swing works and is just an incredible teacher with how he can communicate with players," Kelenic said
So, what kind of swing are they working with? Well here's what it looked like at the end of last season at Triple-A Gwinnett.
But Kelenic arrived in Gwinnett after slashing .167/.231/.300 with 23 strikeouts in 65 plate appearances with the Braves at the beginning of the year, and a season like that probably involves cycling through a few different options. Sure enough, here's a swing from last April.
Hmm, that's a lot more upright with Kelenic's hands starting much closer to his head. Come to think of it, the 2024 campaign didn't go perfectly to plan (.231/.286/.393, 87 wRC+), so it's fair to wonder if ... yeah, different again.
Unlike a lot of post-hype NRI signings, Kelenic has a bonafide above-average offensive season to his name, when he hit .253/.327/.419 in 105 games in 2023. The White Sox would gladly take that kind of production, and it's easy to imagine that yet another different looking kind of swing generated those numbers.
So, once more:
Usually the rule of three is best for persuasive writing, but hopefully the point has been communicated that Kelenic has already been through his share of tweaks, adjustments and tinkering in pursuit of his latent potential. In keeping with that, Kelenic assures that his setup already looks markedly different since the close of 2025. He says to key to finding balance amid all the changes is divorcing himself from the results, which isn't easy when his results are projected on an enormous scoreboard visible to everyone at his workplace.
"The answer to that question I would say is the importance of being focused on the way that your body is moving," Kelenic said. "How do you not let it spiral out of control is that you don't view the results as a good versus a bad thing, you just let the bad results be a learning opportunity. When you have an instant where you just rolled something over or whatever, that whole time you're noticing that you're in the same spot and all that and everything's good, then a rollover doesn't bother you as much."
As different as all those clips look, Kelenic would point out the commonality that he's using a leg kick in all those instances, as he's employed one for his entire career. By the end of 2025, he felt it was throwing him off balance; his weight was shifted too far back, giving him a longer path to the hitting zone and making it difficult for him to adjust to offspeed.
"I have a tendency to get stuck back and my posture, I can be a little bit more leaned back," Kelenic said. "Anyone that knows the swing, when your posture is back, your barrel, it takes a while for it to get in the zone. It actually goes in and out of the zone pretty fast, so it doesn’t work. It can be tough dealing with change of speed when they are adding and subtracting on you.
"One of the things I wanted to work on was making sure my spine angle was more linear and wasn’t leaned back. My weight distribution was more centered. Just being an athlete in the box, that was the biggest thing. And so hearing them talk about that, hearing them acknowledge the type of player I am was reassuring to hear. Just the clear crystal plan they had of what they wanted to do to attack it, it was really motivating for me."
Kelenic's description of his issues are reminiscent of a different left-handed corner outfielder who has gone from the highest of prospect plaudits to trying re-find their swing for a rebuilding White Sox team. Andrew Benintendi's .263/.328/.503 second half in 2024 -- some call it The Benintenaissance -- came as he ditched his leg kick for a smaller toe tap movement to load his swing.
For Benintendi, the change was less about weight distribution and more about giving him extra time in his swing to adjust for secondary stuff, along with some charmingly grumpy quotes about how hard all the kids throw these days. As Kelenic too has changed to a toe tap, he feels it will also serve that purpose for him while also evening out his weight distribution.
"We felt that a toe tap was going to be able to help me control my back side and be able to load as early as I wanted to, so that I don't have to fight the battle of trying to get on time," Kelenic said. "I've had a leg kick my entire life. I've always hit like that. I could get away with it when guys were throwing like 70 percent fastballs. Now you see the numbers and guys aren't throwing 70 percent fastballs. Now more guys are throwing more offspeed than fastballs. I recognize that the leg kick, I was having a hard time timing that up."
To belabor the point that such changes don't guarantee success for Kelenic is unnecessary -- he's on a minor league deal! The team is already telling you as much! But there is one certainty: Sometime in the future there will be fifth GIF of a new Kelenic swing. In these turbulent times, such surety is comforting.
