MLB: Kepler in his third year with the Twins – so close to his breakthrough

After a good two months in the MLB season, Outfielder Max Kepler is one of the positive developments in 2018. SPOX shows the game of the Minnesota Twins against the Cleveland Indians on Sunday (from 8.10 pm) at the LIVESTREAM FOR FREE.

In his third MLB season, it was clear from the start that Kepler was one of his team’s breakout candidates. After two years of solid performances, which always included certain deficits, the expectations before the 2018 season were quite high for the German in Minnesota.

Probably the biggest and most prominent deficit was his weakness in beating left-handed people. Kepler was pretty bad against Lefties.

“It is always said that this lefty lefty matchup is more difficult. I’ve never had any problems against Lefties in my whole career, but if you let something get to you mentally in baseball, it’ll be a lot harder for you,” Kepler said in the SPOX interview at the start of the season.

However, Kepler now seems to have found this mental strength. While he still had an OPS of .522 against left-handers in 2016 and 2017, in 2018 it will be an unbelievable 1,139! More than twice as good a value. After Kepler had beaten two home runs against Lefties in 2017, there are now four.

Of course, the season is only two months old and Kepler has only played 29 games against Lefties – 143 in the previous two seasons. But the trend is extremely positive.

This is good for the Twins and their manager Paul Molitor in two ways. First, with these numbers, Kepler is a much more complete player than before and therefore no longer a platoon candidate. On the other hand, Kepler makes the staff in the outfield more flexible.

Right Fielder Kepler has already helped out in Center Field more often this year than son and heir Byron Buxton had to pass. His good athleticism allows him to fill the position competently – though not nearly as spectacular as Buxton, but who can?

As a result, the Twins can afford not to have an additional fifth outfielder – Ryan LaMarre and Robbie Grossman are the other two out there – and instead to have a total of 13 pitchers in the squad. This is an aspect that should not be underestimated in view of the not always sovereign pitching rotation of the team.

What is a little surprising about the enormous increase against left-handers, however, is the fact that Kepler weakens against right-handers. His OPS against right-handers is currently at .692.

To put this into perspective, Kepler’s career OPS against right-handers is .790 (against left-handers: .632). Kepler has a lefty against lefties sOPS+ (an offensive statistic that shows how well someone beats in a particular statistic in a particular scenario compared to the league average) of 223, but only 92 sOPS+ against right-handers. 100 describes the average of the league.

Trivial said: While Kepler as a left-handed batsman beats almost 150 percent better against left-handed pitchers, his performance against right-handed players is currently even eight percent worse than the average.

That would, of course, be a matter of general concern. But as baseball reference calculates, Kepler currently has a (total) OPS+ of 127, which is 27 percent better than the average. By the way, he is also 26 percent above his career average, after producing below average in each of the two previous years.

But how can this increase in performance be explained overall? First and foremost through better preparation. “Last year I swung for’disposable pitches’, which are pitches that clearly fly outside the strike zone, as he explained to The Athletic. “I was too aggressive in certain situations. I think patience has helped me a lot this year, left-handed and right-handed.”

Especially the slider shows Kepler’s new approach. Opposing pitcher throw their slider “down and away” against Kepler, i.e. deep and outside the strike zone in the direction of Batter’s Box for right-handers. In previous years, Kepler swung to such pitches and either missed them completely or made only weak contact, which usually led to outs.

Now he is much more patient against Slider. This year it has a chase rate (swing rate) of 27.6 percent against sliders flying outside the strike zone. Conversely, the contact rate for this pitch rose from just under 66 percent at the time to 76 percent now.

Kepler continued: “I’m going to go to the record and wait for my pitch instead of hitting its pitch. It’s as if I’m much more aware of the situation than in previous years.”

Kepler has also played himself into the consciousness of the competition with his previous achievements. An anonymous National League scout recently revealed to The Athletic: “He now fills his frame better and has become stronger. And now he plays defensively and offensively with more self-confidence. He has shown that he can play center field when necessary. And he will continue to improve, because he is hungry and wants to show the whole country that he is a Major League regular who could become an All-Star every year in the future”.

However, Kepler and the Twins will have to make up ground and move closer to the top of the division against their main rival in the American League Central, the Cleveland Indians. The final of the series will take place on Sunday at 8.10 pm in the LIVESTREAM for FREE on SPOX.

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