Call up someone else. Bench Kepler. Trade him. DFA him. Strap him to a rocket and fire him into the nearest black hole.
Look, I've never advocated for human rocketry to address athletic shortcomings, but Kepler's performance begged for some resolution. After all, pre-All-Star break, his .207 batting average was 291st among 314 qualified players. His weighted runs created plus (wRC+) – a more telling overall performance statistic – was 88, and not the kind of 88 that actuates the flux capacitor and looses the surly bonds of time and space. Only Christian Vázquez and Michael A. Taylor, two players who play more defense-oriented positions, fared worse. For a team whose place at the top of the division standings was becoming increasingly precarious by midsummer, it would have been reasonable for the Twins to explore alternatives (space flight, time travel, or otherwise).
To be fair, Kepler battled through early-season maladies that undoubtedly impacted his numbers. In April, he was sidelined with patellar tendinitis in his right knee. Then, just as he was regaining momentum and consistency at the end of April and the beginning of May (including 10 extra-base hits in 24 games), a hamstring injury to the opposite leg triggered another IL stint. It probably doesn't need to be said – particularly to this savvy audience, smart enough to pay for deep analysis – but legs are crucial to the game of baseball. As is consistency. For the better part of the first half, Max Kepler had neither.
What does that do to a player's psyche? Several years ago, then-Twins manager Paul Molitor was pestered about a veteran player's putrid offensive performance. As he was wont to do, Molitor provided a very insightful response that applies to Kepler.
"I think sometimes when you get off to poor starts, even as a veteran, it becomes an uphill battle. It's hard to look up at the scoreboard and see numbers that aren't very appealing. And you're trying to find ways to get it back into a more comfortable state and you end up thinking about the wrong things instead of just going out there and trusting each at bat."
On July 9, shortly before the All-Star break, Max Kepler would look at the Target Field scoreboard and see the .207/.279/.409 slash line looming over him, reminding him of his ongoing struggles. So much of baseball is a mental game – perhaps as much as 90 percent.
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