Kepler Might Be a Few Tweaks Away From Getting Back on Track

My uninformed opinion from my recliner thinks he has tried to hard to hit the ball to the opposite field. The result has been too much weak contact and a lower launch angle. He needs to go up to the plate looking for a pitch to attack and drive it to the pull side.

Given the Arraez trade and the fact the Twins should have three open spots on the 40 man around spring training when Lewis, Canterino and Paddack get put on the IL there is a solid chance the Twins roll with Max as well as Gallo.  There is so much up in the air with Kepler and his projected performance it seems like it might be hard for the Twins to get fair value for him.

He does do a lot of things right.  Plays really good defense, has a good eye at the plate, can hit for power and runs well.  Like the OP mentioned if he can tweak a thing or two he could have his breakout for real this time.  The tough part is we have been waiting for it since 2019 so he could still just be who he is which seems to be about 2 WAR player which isn't bad either.  

I can't say I love potentially carrying 8 outfielders on the 40 man but with currently only 6 infielders it looks like the Twins can make it work if they want too.  It could go either way IMO.  Once those spots open up I see the Twins grabbing a reliever or two and maybe something for first maybe not and looks to me like they will be done.  They don't have to sell low on Kepler and if I were them I wouldn't as he has good value now and possibly more with a little better luck.

If you look at his 2017 and 2018 seasons under Rowson there is not a major difference to them compared to his 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons. His 2019 season which was probably his career year is out of the norm and not what to expect from him. You also have to remember in 2019 they used the juice ball which is not in play anymore. That is another reason to think and expect that he won't replicate his 2019 numbers again.

“When browsing through Kepler’s Baseball Savant page, you get smacked in the face with his surprisingly good 2022 Percentile Rankings. What conclusions can we draw from this?”  We can conclude that modern metrics that only attempt to measure speculative things are pretty much useless. Should one base projections based on facts (past performance ) or should decisions be based on basically hopes and wishes?  Logic dictates that wise decisions are based on facts, not speculation. 

While the statcast numbers paint a nice picture, the fact that Kepler does not produce at the level that his underlying numbers suggest he should is ancient history to everyone that has been following the Twins. 

The front office should be texting all of these numbers to other general managers to get them to bite. I'm sure some GMs who have not been watching Kepler play every day will look at the numbers and see a buy-low opportunity.

And I have nothing against Kepler, I think he is a great personality but his fate was sealed when Gallo signed. Although it makes one wonder who would possibly trade anything of value for Kepler when they could have just signed a very similar player in Gallo for 4M more.

I am really curious what the TD blowback will be if/when the Twins Opening Day OF is Gallo, Buxton, Kepler.   We might see frogs, pestilence, and locusts...

Personally, I won't complain.  It will amazing to watch defensively,

Data from Fangraphs (below) shows that Kepler's first half numbers are solid, but routinely (and sometimes catastrophically) fall off in the second half.  I know last year he broke a toe in June and struggled after that.  I wonder if Kepler wears down or plays through/with injury and it hurts his offensive productivity.  Perhaps changes in the training staff will help.

First Half numbers:

Second Half:

With the “huge promise” that Larnach has & with the signing of Gallo, the only way for Kepler to play is for Gordon to sit.

Don’t know what the metrics say about Gordon? I do know he gained 25lb from January to June & he played about 100 games in the outfield last year. He was solid in LF for 65 games & in CF for about 35 games. My assumption for this year was he would play another 15 games at each position and hit at the level he did in ‘22.

In 405 AB’s he had 28 doubles & 9 HR & had a .272 BA.

With another 125-150 AB’s he projects out to 13-14 HR & near 40 doubles. He has decent speed. In actuality, still growing & getting stronger, since he mastered his intestinal ailment.

I don’t dislike Max Kepler. I really appreciate his defense! His supposed power brought up in a couple comments only existed in 2019……see juiced ball season. I do think the “shift” elimination has the potential to help Kepler maybe as much as 20-25 points in BA. His OBP & RBI can jump with this change as well. The problem is the Gallo signing makes Kepler’s talents and his accompanying salary not a fit for the ‘23 Twin’s roster.

Gordon produced in ‘22 & should be pencilled in for LF & for Buxton’s primary back up in CF.

If Gallo DH’s 10% of games - plays RF 30% of the time - 20% of the time in LF - 1B 10% of the time maybe he doesn’t disrupt Larnach & Kirilof & Gordon’s development? In this scenario Kepler plays 70% of the time in RF & we see if he gets his trade value up OR if we move Gallo at the deadline. It’s possible we DFA Gallo if he’s not producing by mid- June!

I still see best scenario for the organization (after the questionable signing of Gallo) is to figure out what team that’s expected to contend & may have an expendable arm & may have interest in LH batting - everyday outfielder. We can throw in guys under team control (Celestino - Jeffers - Martin) & maybe a veteran reliever with upside……..Pagan - J. Lopez. This pkg. with Kepler has to be worth something to a handful of teams - right?

I'll always remember the look on Bauer's face when Max hit his third dinger of the day off of him.  For that, Kep will always have a warm place in my heart.  I hope we keep him this year.

Interesting to read this. I am surprised Kepler is still with us after this winter, but it does not surprise me much with our Twins anymore. 

I believe that it is absolutely wiser to believe in this article than to believe Mr. Buxton will play 100 games or Mr. Baldelli will change his game management.

I am also hopeful that Kepler will have a more productive year with the shift changing rules. He is a pleasure to watch in the field, He can be very patient at the plate. He is zero drama on this team. I would love to see a rebound for the guy and this team. I also chuckled reading Popkins name. Talk about Mr. Irrelevant (Sorry, I tossed in a football reference), I had forgotten he was our hitting coach.

I like the optimism and research from Mr. Rabelo in the article. 

I, the old geezer will remain skeptical but loyal. GO TWINS~

Twins Geezer..........out!

  On 1/23/2023 at 9:21 AM, Fat Calvin said:

I'll always remember the look on Bauer's face when Max hit his third dinger of the day off of him.  For that, Kep will always have a warm place in my heart.  I hope we keep him this year.

 

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Well said 😅

It's hard to get too excited about significant improvement from Kepler, because it seems pretty unlikely. Is it possible? Sure, but to date he's only really ever had 1 good season as a hitter. And that season was certainly appears to have had a juiced baseball, but regardless something happened that season that sent a substantially higher number of Kepler fly balls into the seats and without that factor he's been a below average hitter.

(yes, he was above average in 2020, but that small sample season probably isn't representative of who he is as a player; that season he also was relatively poor defensively and it all likely had more to do with a smaller sample than anything else. Over a full season he defensive stats likely would have risen and his offense would have slipped)

He's a fine defensive player in RF, with a strong arm and excellent range. But there's real flaws in his approach and execution at the plate. there are some nice looking "red numbers" on his Baseball savant page, but he's in the white on some pretty important ones: avg exit velocity, barrel %, and hard hit %. The fact that his max exit velocity is in the 93rd % means that he tattooed the snot out of ONE ball...but most of the time he didn't hit it that hard. It's great that he didn't chase the ball out of the zone, took walks, and wasn't a K machine...but looking at his barrel % & hard-hit % it matches up to the eye test rather well: Kepler hit a frustrating amount of weak grounders and lazy flies.

the shift functionally going away will help some of those grounders to bleed into hits...but how many? (it's been suggested that over the course of a season it'll likely be 5-10. That doesn't move the needle much for Kepler as an offensive force, even if you added 10 hits to last season's injury shortened season) To have a good season, Kepler needs to hit the ball harder consistently and it's hard to say there's much evidence that he will. He's still not a bad player, but a significant part of his value will be in his defense and his ability to get walks.

  On 1/23/2023 at 3:02 PM, Thiéres Rabelo said:

So base your projection in this fact: Kepler was an above-average hitter for his first 85 games in 2022 (115 wRC+, .734 OPS, 12.2% BB%, 14.5% K%). Then, he had two IL stints, one for a fractured toe and one for a sprained wrist, resulting in him playing only 30 games after July 24.

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Let’s base it on an even larger sample size- his entire career. He’s basically had one good year that was based largely on the live ball (2019).   His OPS and OPS+ have declined every year since 2019.