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2019 has been a breakout year for Max Kepler. Kepler’s talent and upside has been on display since his days in the minor leagues but he has seemingly put it all together this season. In the year of the home run, Kepler has been no exception as he has led the best home run-hitting team in baseball with 36 long balls. His previous career high was 20, which Kepler will more than likely double. He will put up career highs in all of the traditional batting stats and has been good for a team best 4.4 fWAR. Defensively he is among the best right fielders in baseball and he has filled in admiringly in center field during Byron Buxton’s trips to the IL.
 
When dreaming about Max Kepler’s upside a comp that has often been made is to Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Christian Yelich. Like Kepler, Yelich spends the majority of his time in right field, hits for a lot of power despite not having a traditional power hitter’s build, and leads his team in home runs and WAR. Yelich’s contract situation is also very similar to Kepler’s as he is currently signed to a seven year, 49.57 million dollar contract that ends in 2021 with a club option in 2022. Kepler is also signed to a seven million dollar AAV through 2023 with a club option for 2024. Needless to say both Minnesota and Milwaukee can be nothing less than thrilled with those contacts.
 
While Kepler’s power surge came to fruition this season, Yelich had a similar transformation in 2018. Prior to being traded over to Milwaukee before the 2018 season, Yelich’s previous home run high with the Miami Marlins was 21 in 2016. However, last season Yelich exploded for 36 dingers in his first season with Milwaukee and has hit a career high 43 so far this year. Yelich’s 2018 numbers (.326/.402/.598, 166 wRC+, 7.6 fWAR) were good enough to win the NL MVP award and lead his team to within a game of the World Series. Although Milwaukee is now on the outside looking in for a wild card spot, Yelich has been every bit as good, hitting .326/.421/.672 for a 169 wRC+ and a 7 fWAR.
 
Kepler’s numbers have not yet reached the level of Yelich’s, but his great leap forward has happened at the same age as Yelich’s. Both players were consistent and above average players in their earlier years, but something clicked in their age-26 seasons. As both players became more familiar with major league pitching and most likely added some strength, there power numbers surged. Both started hitting the ball harder than ever as Yelich’s hard hit percentage went from 35.2% in his age-25 season, to 47.6% at age 26 (and 50.3% this year!), while Kepler has gone from 37.1% to 42.9% (and up from 33% for his first two seasons).
 


 
Both players have had similar power trajectories but there are clear differences in their overall skill sets. Kepler and Yelich both have good speed, but Yelich is a very good base stealer (26 SB on the year with only 2 CS) while Kepler very rarely attempts to take a bag. Yelich is also a much better overall hitter than Kepler thus far in their careers. Yelich has a career .301 batting average with a .381 on-base-percentage and a .373 wOBA. Kepler on the other hand has hit just .239 with a .320 OBP and .326 wOBA. Yelich has the advantage of having an extra year of being an elite hitter on Kepler, but his overall numbers would still be much better than Kepler’s.
 
Their career walk rates are similar (Yelich 11.0%, Kepler 9.9%) and Kepler actually has the better isolated power numbers (.208 ISO to .190) but Yelich has a huge advantage when it comes to batting average on balls in play (BABIP). Kepler has always had a notoriously low BABIP (career .254) and this season has been no different at .246. Contrast that to Yelich who has always been able to “hit it where they ain’t” with a career .358 BABIP. While BABIP can fluctuate a fair amount from season to season and is somewhat luck based, a career difference of over .100 is certainly more than just luck. Yelich’s ability to hit the ball slightly harder than Kepler and his faster sprint speeds probably helps a bit, but Yelich is also less pull-heavy than Kepler which makes him less susceptible to hitting into the shift. Kepler is currently pulling the ball at a 53.7 % clip while going opposite field just 19% of the time. Yelich hits the balls to all fields, pulling 38.5 %, going to center 38.3 %, and going opposite field 23.2 % of the time.
 


 
With Kepler hitting for as much power as he has, the Twins are probably loath to change his approach in order to improve his average. There is, however, one area where Kepler already exceeds Yelich – defense. Yelich is not a bad defender per say, but he is probably average at best and is rated negatively by both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference (which could be the deciding factor in Cody Bellinger winning the NL MVP this year). Conversely, Kepler rates as one of the best right fielders in the MLB with a 19.8 UZR/150 and has played well in center with a 12.8 UZP/150. FanGraphs even has Kepler rated as the best defensive outfielder in all of baseball.
 
Christian Yelich is already one of the top players in all of baseball, but Max Kepler is not so far behind. If Kepler can continue to improve his overall offensive game and maintain his homerun power, he could join the elite few in baseball. MVP awards may be hard to come by with arguably the best player in MLB history also playing in the American League (Mike Trout, in case you’ve been living under a rock), but at the young age of 26 Max Kepler is starting to turn some heads. Minnesota would naturally be happy if Kepler can continue to replicate the success he has had in 2019, but it may even be possible that the best is yet to come.

With the Twins getting a big sweep over the Angels, they seem to have righted the ship to a certain extent. At the center of the good fortune (and sorry to Oswaldo Arcia who has contributed two game winners), is poster child Joe Mauer. The St. Paul native seems to be the story to write this week (pieces at Twins Daily and MLB Daily Dish), and for good reason.
 
Over the course of the spring, Twins beat writer Mike Berardino often noted when Mauer was and wasn't wearing sunglasses. Now further removed from his position-change-forcing concussion, Mauer was experimenting with different alternatives to give him an edge at the plate. Minnesota's first basemen said that he had struggled to see the ball at time during 2015, and that probably didn't help him as he scuffled to a career worst .265 batting average.
 
Going into this season, I thought that the extra distance from his injuries issues would give Mauer an edge. During my bold predictions piece, I suggested that the Twins hometown hero would hit .300 again on the season. So far, he's trending towards making that look like a cakewalk.
 
Through the Twins first 12 games, Mauer is slashing an incredible .372/.472/.415. Mauer has had good April's before, but the 2016 season is different, and you don't have to look to deep to find out why. Currently, Mauer's numbers supporting his results are staggering.
 
On the season, Mauer owns a 1.8% swinging strike rate, meaning he almost never swings and misses. He's faced four 0-2 counts in which he has swung, and he's gotten base hits each time. Against full counts, Mauer is slashing .500/.727/.667 with five walks and ZERO strikeouts in 11 plate appearances. When pitches have gotten two strikes on Mauer, he's responded with a .400/.520/.450 line. Also, after going down 0-2, Mauer owns an .833/.889/1.000 line on the year. To say he's seeing the ball well doesn't even begin to explain it.
 
In his heyday, Mauer dictated what would happen when he stepped into the batters box, and he's doing that once again. Through the first handful of games for the Twins, Mauer has told pitchers where than can and cannot throw the ball to him, and he's punished them for missing their spots. Still taking a pitch or two when stepping into the box, it's actually been a scenario in which Mauer has lulled the opposing pitcher into giving him the advantage.
 
To suggest what Mauer is doing is incredible is probably selling it somewhat short.
 
We are plenty removed from the days that Joe Mauer was Major League Baseball's Most Valuable Player. He's no longer a catcher, and his brain injury has caused his game to change the way he's played. He's never going to be the big bopper first basemen, but what we are seeing in the 2016 Mauer is something Twins fans have long since forgotten the St. Paul native capable of.
 
It's been three seasons since Mauer has eclipsed the .300 mark. He was last an All Star in 2013, and slashed .324/.404/.476 that year. It was the last in which he spent time playing behind the plate. Now a full time first basemen, Mauer and his sunglasses have put him back into the realm of playing the game he has always been synonymous with.
 
Credit Mauer for working through the ill effects of his injury and finding a way in which his bat can return to its elite level. His work at first base has also taken significant strides, as he's now above league average defensively at the position. Things are seemingly coming full circle for him, and that's a great thing for the Twins.
 
It wasn't too long ago that Mauer was on a collision course with the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. He's still got a ways to go, and I opined that there's reason to believe he gets there, but hitting for average as a first basemen isn't going to do anything but help his cause. If he can continue his current approach at the plate for the Twins, he'll be the most valuable player to this squad and it won't be remotely close.
 
Forget the average and the raw numbers, when looking at how Joe Mauer is generating production in 2016, opposing pitchers should be looking straight up a mountain when trying to consider their ensuing battle.
 
For more from Off The Baggy, click here. Follow @tlschwerz

Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch
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After the Twins traded Aaron Hicks to the New York Yankees for JR Murphy, there was an assumption that Byron Buxton was de facto handed the Centerfield job to start the season. For the ones who have seen Buxton's close personal battles with breaking balls, this was not a welcome sign. Additionally, Eddie Rosario, has played Centerfield for most of his career, and there was some talk that Danny Santana, who has no business playing the OF, might be tested as a potential backup, or even starter, in case Byron Buxton is still swatting at curveballs in the dirt as if the were the State Bird of Minnesota.
 
Today, thankfully, the Twins took one step in amending those crazy thoughts, by signing Joe Benson to minor league deal. Yes, that Joe Benson, the Twins' second round draft pick in 2006, who put up a .259/.343/.538 slash line with 27 HRs and 19 SBs in 2010 between New Britain and Fort Myers and exclamated it with great body defying defense in the Centerfield. In 2011 he was hitting .285/.388/.495 in June in New Britain with 16 HRs and 13 SBs, when he had a left knee surgery (meniscus) and was not the same, even though he was awarded with a September callup to the Twins. In 2012 he broke his hamate (wrist) in May, which he surgically repaired and had an additional surgery in August, to clean up debris from his previous surgery. After that he went downhill with the bat. I saw him in 2013 play for Rochester and he was not the same guy. You can read that here, along with a very characteristic picture of him. That season he fought additional soreness to that left wrist and was sidelined for a month and a half with a pulled groin.
 
Benson was signed with Miami before the 2014 season where he put a respectable .264/.364/.410, 10 HRs and 15 SB in 124 games, and more importantly finished his season healthy. In 2015 he signed with the Braves were he was released after 41 games in AAA Gwinnett where he hit .246/.346/.331. After 5 games in the Independent Leagues, he was picked up by the Mets who had him be Binghamton's (AA) starting Centerfielder. He hit .250/.355/.380 in 54 games and made plays like this:
 

Benson is a no-risk/high reward signing and a potential great story to watch while he will be fighting for a job with the Twins in Spring Training of 2016. He needs to relax and have fun out there again, like he did in 2010 and 2011, instead of pressing himself to perform at his high level of expectations and get disappointed. That catch up there made a couple of months ago, makes me think that he can do it and finally the Twins' fans will see what made him twice a top 100 baseball prospect.