The Argument Against Trading Max Kepler

[DJL44]

Would rather have Max Kepler with his contract than Cody Bellinger with his new contract.

[JD-TWINS]

21 hours ago, PatPfund said:

The part of the OP that is dead on? Max has more value to the Twins than to others. 

A. (as pointed out) the vaunted OF depth doesn't exist. In both of the past two seasons we've been running a cast of players not-ready-for-prime-time to the OF for extended starts. One of them (Celestino) is often considered a fixture of some sort now, despite being a weak-bat/weak-mind player.

B. Everyone else knows of Max's struggles. I'd trade him today if there was going to be something substantial coming back, but if it is just to move him (or dump salary with the tens of millions we have free to spend right now), then... no. And again, everyone knows Max, so something substantial isn't coming back. 

Exactly - nothing positive coming back in a Kepler trade. Nobody’s trading for gold glove with 15 doubles & .225 avg. at $9 million!!!

Completely agree on our “outfield depth”……Jake Cave, seems like a great guy and super effort guy, not an MLB hitter. He’s Kepler with less power & 30 points less batting average. Gone. Celestino is OK on defense, no power & .230 average and clueless on bases, not a member of a good team. Gone. Garlick looks like Harmon Killebrew playing outfield. Emergency outfielder. No offense Harm! We have Buxton at 100 games in CF - Gordon in LF with Larnach there when Gordon plays CF or 2B. Kirilof seems to be the 1B - DH - LF blend with outfield being last option. Walner is limited. With existing contract, Kepler is a necessary evil with some potential offensive upside with shift change.

[JD-TWINS]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

Would rather have Max Kepler with his contract than Cody Bellinger with his new contract.

Pretty sure, as hard as this is to say, Kepler is a better value. Kepler at $9 million with some potential power upside as well as 25-30 point uptick in BA without shift.

Bellinger is making $17.5 million I believe, and has been down for 3 years with only “potential” for that $ number. 

[KBJ1]

Well yeah  Kep needs to "hit better" to stay in the lineup.  As you say his potential and results have been maddeningly mixed.

But for the money, there are plenty of worse candidates who aren't elite fielders makking much more! Until someone in our minor league system unseats him, trading him makes no sense. We already gave away a solid player in Urshela and have had NOTHING to replace Rosario since we let him walk. Find a LF power hitter with speed and defense before we give away any more known quantities.

And why are we so enamored with Correa when we have Lewis (if healthy) ready to star at the SS position? Spend the money on pitching!!!!

[TwinsChupacabra]

It's called settling. Us Twins fans are used to it. 

It used to be that the corner outfield positions required a fair amount offense.  I guess we'll settle for a defensive specialist.  

[Seansy]

On 12/7/2022 at 6:33 AM, Riverbrian said:

Before you use the word absurd. 

Please do your 1 WAR = 8M dollar math on Eddie Rosario before we let him walk over an estimated 10m during Arbitration. Extrapolate his shortened 2020 season the same way as you did Max. 

Also... Let me ask your opinion on how Eddie Rosario went from 4.3 to 1.5 bWAR from 2018 to 2019? Please break down the numbers that caused a 4.3 to 1.5 drop because I'm not understanding how it's possible and I could use some help understanding.  

 

I was going off fWAR which shows a drop from 4.0 (a career high) to 0.9. Eddie had giant drops in both offensive and defensive production that year. You may recall he was playing with a hurt ankle (or some other injury in that area). Teams mostly didn't run on him due to his strong arm but his range was awful (likely due to the injury). His OPS was ~ the same from 2018-2019 but you have to remember that was the juiced ball year where offense was up across baseball. Having the same OPS actually dings him for not improving his numbers like the rest of the league. This explains his wRC+ dropping from 114 to 104. He went from good offense/mediocre defense to average offense (for a corner OF)/abysmal defender.

 

He had a magical postseason and a great end of the season with the Braves but he had a .397 OPS in the first half of the year after they cut him! Nobody claimed him off waivers! He was awful last year too!

Their career OPS comparison is .767 for Rosario and .744 for Kepler. The difference in value is in their defense.

[Riverbrian]

5 hours ago, Seansy said:

I was going off fWAR which shows a drop from 4.0 (a career high) to 0.9. Eddie had giant drops in both offensive and defensive production that year. You may recall he was playing with a hurt ankle (or some other injury in that area). Teams mostly didn't run on him due to his strong arm but his range was awful (likely due to the injury). His OPS was ~ the same from 2018-2019 but you have to remember that was the juiced ball year where offense was up across baseball. Having the same OPS actually dings him for not improving his numbers like the rest of the league. This explains his wRC+ dropping from 114 to 104. He went from good offense/mediocre defense to average offense (for a corner OF)/abysmal defender.

 

He had a magical postseason and a great end of the season with the Braves but he had a .397 OPS in the first half of the year after they cut him! Nobody claimed him off waivers! He was awful last year too!

Their career OPS comparison is .767 for Rosario and .744 for Kepler. The difference in value is in their defense.

Thank you for this. I really appreciate it. I learned some things about the offensive weighting/adjustments from year to year.

I'm still struggling with the defensive weighting that is taking place. 

[Seansy]

22 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

Thank you for this. I really appreciate it. I learned some things about the offensive weighting/adjustments from year to year.

I'm still struggling with the defensive weighting that is taking place. 

Defensive metrics have improved over time but they are definitely less reliable than offense ones. Rosie definitely fell off defensively in 2019 but bounced back after that so I think it really was the injury that hurt him most.

[Riverbrian]

1 hour ago, Seansy said:

Defensive metrics have improved over time but they are definitely less reliable than offense ones. Rosie definitely fell off defensively in 2019 but bounced back after that so I think it really was the injury that hurt him most.

Could be the injury that hurt him or the less reliable defensive metrics. I question the weighting of the non-routine play that occurs. A RF or LF only makes a couple of plays a game and the overwhelming majority of those plays are routine.

The penalty for a single botched routine play or the reward for a single non-routine play has to be too high because the defensive stats are making up a lot of offensive ground. 

A RF might get one chance every 4 to 5 innings. 4 out of those 5 would probably be classified as routine. A difference making play might be one every 3 games.    

I really appreciate the conversation.