MLB: Max Kepler after the Playoff-Off: Out with applause

Max Kepler and his Minnesota Twins failed after a hard fight in the AL Wild Card Game at the New York Yankees.The Twins and Kepler don’t have to worry about it.The past six months have been too good for the young team.The German bid farewell with a positive trend.

If you look back at a baseball player’s season, you have to consider the whole team’s season.The Minnesota Twins did historic things – they did the trick, after a season of over 100 defeats – 103, to be precise – to reach the playoffs directly in the following year.This was an absolute novelty in the history of MLB.With 85 wins, they were the fifth most successful team in the American League.

Of course, Max Kepler played his part in this.In his second season in the MLB – it was also his first full season without stops in the Minors – he may not have developed into a star, but he is still an integral part of the outfield of the team.He patrolled the Right Field with confidence and also made occasional detours to the Center Field, which is otherwise manned by the outstanding Byron Buxton.

Kepler was not only able to convince scouts and experienced observers with his defensive approach.He also delighted the analysts with his achievements.For example, Kepler found himself in the top 15 of the league in catches which, according to Statcast, have a much higher difficulty in catching than the average.In concrete terms, Kepler is in 15th place with eight “Outs Above Average”.

In addition, Kepler has accumulated five “Defensive Runs Saved” (DRS) according to Fangraphs.What is not much for the untrained eye, however, is remarkable, as it occupies 21st place of all outfielders in the MLB.

The quite positive impressions in the defensive, however, were not quite so impressive performances on the plate.

Compared with its figures for the previous year, 2017 was a confirmation of 2016 rather than a noticeable increase.The main reason for this is a weak second half of the season.Before the All-Star-Break it looked as if the German had somehow got the hang of it, but afterwards the opposite was true.

Specifically, Kepler had an average of. 266 before the break, followed by. 211.The OPS comparison is even more pronounced.Before the break, it was a strong. 788, after that only. 668.A drop of more than 100 percentage points is massive and can only be explained by two things.On the one hand, a certain amount of exhaustion could have occurred, because Kepler played more than 30 games over 2016 and thus broke new ground in the Big Leagues.Here, mental exhaustion is meant above all, because physically he made a good impression throughout.

The second possible factor is that the league and its opponents have gradually adjusted to it.A process that is quite normal in baseballs of the highest league.A look at the so-called hot zones via ESPN shows that it still has shortcomings, especially in pitches that come deep and outwards.That means: Kepler has gaps in his swing or plate coverage.However, this can be remedied by targeted training.Aaron Judge from the Yankees is likely to be the best example of this this season, as he had some serious discipline problems on the record last year, but put it down in the winter.

Another problematic part of Kepler’s game this season was his strikes against left-handers.Like many other left-handed punch people, the German has problems seeing pitches from left-handed players in time and his numbers were correspondingly bad.His slash line of. 152/. 213/. 240 (Average/On-Base Percentage/Slugging Percentage) is frightening.By way of comparison, he beat. 272/. 343/. 484 against right-handers, which in turn are presentable values.

Two things, however, let us hope that Kepler will be able to turn this trend off in the future.On the one hand, the famous self-awareness.As early as the middle of the season, he revealed in an SPOX interview that he was planning to “hit a left-handed player next winter in order to specifically train the hitting against Leftys”.Without a request from SPOX, Kepler commented:”They are a bit harder to play in the Big Leagues than in the Minor Leagues.

So the will is there.In addition, his latest bets against left-handers also looked promising.He even hit two home runs – his first two against Lefties this season.The first one even came against CC Sabathia (Yankees), who had not allowed a single one against left-handers before.

There is also hope for a general increase in the number of BABIP statistics: his “Batting Average with Balls in Play”, or BABIP for short.This describes how effective a batsman was when he brought the ball into play, i. e. no strikeout or homerun.Kepler’s value was. 276, which is relatively weak.But that is the hope, because based on probability calculus, this statistic fluctuates extremely over the years.Means: If someone plays a rather weak season in this area, it is likely that they will have more luck the following year and the value could increase significantly.

In the second half of the season, his BABIP was even down to. 211!”Many people overlook the hard-hitting balls that are caught or beaten in shifts.There are seasons like in a double year in Chattanooga, when every ball I didn’t hit well somehow found a gap and I hit it. 300.This year, however, I have the feeling that every ball I hit optimally went directly to an opponent,”Kepler remarked himself to the Pioneer Press.

So what remains of this season, apart from the fact that the twins as a team have achieved an incredible turnaround that has never been possible before?From Kepler’s point of view, it was certainly a very instructive year, as he had his first long MLB season and saw that it can be exhausting at all levels.An important experience for the future!

He hit 19 home runs and was the fifth-best player in the Twins, his 32 doubles were even the third most behind Joe Mauer, the face of the franchise, and Eddie Rosario.In addition, the team relied on him because only three players had more at-bats than Kepler (511).Surely, he was increasingly sitting outside against left-handers towards the end of the year, after hitting deeper in the batting order.But they didn’t really want to do without him either.

But then the said defensive was too good.Nowadays, teams value such things more than ever before.The best example of this is Kepler’s team mate Byron Buxton, who had worse overall numbers than Kepler, but played a fantastic center field and with 24 Defensive Runs Saved second place in the outfield league with 24 defensive runs.

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The situation in the coming season and how the Twins Kepler see it internally will, of course, not be revealed until the winter transfer phase.But one thing is certain: Max Kepler has shown that he definitely belongs to this league at the present time and with his still very young age of 24.As a starter.There is no question that he still has to work enormously on himself, but this is true of so many others and is therefore not a negative aspect.

The experts agree that the potential is there.Jack Morris, a former all-star pitcher and TV expert on the Twins, recently said:”This boy may be the best hitter of all,”talking about the promising outfielders working in Minnesota.Considering the explosiveness of a Buxton, a big compliment.

Even though at the end of the day there was a defeat in New York, Kepler said goodbye to his head.In the Wild Card Game, his first ever playoff game, he hit a double right in the first inning and loaded the bases per walk in the third inning, which ultimately led to the fourth run of the twins.There were already much worse postseason debuts!

The season may have come to an abrupt end for Kepler and the Twins, but the mere fact that the playoffs were reached after lousy 2016 is worthy of all credit and will give the very young troupe a boost for the future.Who knows, maybe 2017 was a kind of preview for really big things in the coming seasons – for the Twins as a team and Kepler himself.

This article was published without prior view by the Major League Baseball.