So Major League Baseball is doing this thing this year where they have one Opening Day for most of the league and another Opening Day eight days earlier for Joe Kelly.
I love it.
I have been advocating for this for a long time.
People can’t wait all spring for Joe Kelly! And he’s a reliever—he doesn’t need to be stretched out like a starter.
In a few hours, Tyler Glasnow and Yu Darvish will take the mound in Seoul to open the 2024 Major League Baseball season. There will be much cheering and stamping of feet. Millions of Koreans will pile into the ballpark. Millions of Americans will sit down in front of their TVs. Will they be there to see Darvish, the Japanese legend with a delightful personality and a flair for the offspeed? Will they be there to see Glasnow, an eight-foot-tall white Adonis whose arm tests and repeatedly falls victim to the limits of human ligaments? Or will they be there to see Joe Kelly, a man whose electric fastball and dazzling offspeed have combined with his sense of humor and his vigilante streak to propel baseball lightyears ahead of sports like the NFL, NBA, and NCGAA in the foreign world?
Who are we kidding.
They’re there to see Joe Kelly.
It’s been a good offseason for our guy. Signed pretty early, expected to have a big role, I haven’t heard anything about spring training going anyway other than perfectly (I don’t mean all strikeouts I mean perfectly Joe Kelly). So, three things to watch:
1. So Joe Kelly Has a Minor League Team Now?
Yes. The Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, a Dodgers single-A affiliate with whom Joe Kelly rehabs when necessary (I think he does it there because they’re close to his house, and I swear it is only an accident that I know vaguely where Joe Kelly lives), have decided to be the Rancho Cucamonga Chaquetas during Copa de la Diversión, the “Fun Cup,” an ongoing series of minor league games celebrating Latin American baseball culture. Joe Kelly is half-Mexican, a great salsa dancer, and the famous owner of one Mariachi jacket. The Chaquetas’ uniforms will be modeled off that jacket. The logo is Joe Kelly wearing the jacket while pitching.
Now.
There is evidently a problem with the word “chaqueta.”
In addition to “jacket,” it’s evidently a slang term for masturbation in some parts of Mexico. I’m guessing this is a play off of “jack it” and “jacket” being homophones. Not homophobes! Homophones. Words that sound the same. I think “jack it” worked its way back into some Spanish parlance as “jacket” turned into “chaqueta.” I believe there’s a linguistic term for this transition from an English homophone to a Spanish joke, but I don’t know it.
Honestly, I bet if Joe Kelly is aware of this, he is getting a big kick out the whole thing. The Rancho Cucamonga Wankers, styled in Joe Kelly’s image.
2. Where Does Joe Kelly Fit in the Dodger Bullpen?
Brusdar Graterol’s on the IL, Blake Treinen bruised his lung (after all of that), and so it’s looking like Joe Kelly and Evan Phillips at the back of the Dodger ‘pen? At least to start the year. Seems like Phillips is going to get the most save opportunities, but don’t rule out Closer Kelly here and there, at least to start.
I do think Joe Kelly’s going to get a lot of single innings, not on consecutive days. That’s the role he’s been sliding into the last few years, and he’s been thriving in it. When you do the things Joe Kelly does, it’s unreasonable to ask mortal flesh to recover in time to do it again the next day, outside of maybe during the playoffs. Joe Kelly’s role, as far as those of relievers go, is pretty predictable.
But it will be in high-leverage innings.
3. Is There Any Chance Joe Kelly Doesn’t Return From This Trip Because South Korea Makes Him Their King?
At the risk of being highly culturally insensitive:
Yes.
