In early April, I wrote about Kepler's approach at the plate. He's been relatively vocal about not intending to increase his launch angle, and instead hit the ball hard on the ground. Thankfully he hasn't followed through with that practice, and he's benefited from elevating the baseball in 2018. Getting more loft on the ball, while continuing to hit it hard, is absolutely a strong blueprint for success. What's even more encouraging for the Minnesota right-fielder is that we haven't seen the results indicative of just how good the approach has been thus far.
On the season, Kepler has posted a career best .803 OPS. He has 19 extra base hits through his first 169 plate appearances, and he's already tallied six longballs. The .250 average is just a slight bump from his .243 resting spot a year ago, but the .337 OBP is indicative of an approach that has yielded an incredible 22/20 K/BB ratio. After struggling to hit lefties last season, even to the point of being platooned against them, he's flipped the script entirely. Kepler owns a 1.120 OPS vs LHP in 2018, while posting a .694 OPS against RHP. The expectation should have always been that he'd hit both types of pitchers given his minor league track record, but this level of production is a very nice surprise.
As good as Kepler has been for Paul Molitor though, the best part is that we're probably just scratching the surface. In 2018 thus far, Max owns just a .256 BABIP to go with his .250 average. That number seems unsustainably low given the numbers surrounding it.
With as well as Kepler is elevating the ball, more impressively yet is how hard he's hitting it. The 44.1% hard hit rate is a career best by over 10%, and he'd putting the ball on the ground a career low 37.8% of the time. Despite those factors working in his favor, his 10.5% HR/FB rate suggests there's plenty of room for growth.
On top of the quality generated behind contact, Kepler isn't getting cheated at the dish either. His 7.7% swinging strike rate is a career best, and he's chasing pitches just 26.5% of the time, a career low. He's also setting another career high with an 83.5% contact rating. If anything, Kepler could be a bit more choosy in an effort to boost his pitchers per plate appearance above 4.0 (currently 3.91) in an effort to see something more juicy.
Trying to tie a bow on what the numbers are telling us, Max Kepler has basically put the big leagues on notice. He's driving the ball with authority, and creating the best contact numbers of his career. On top of that, he's doing it against pitchers who attack him from both sides of the plate, and he's created a blueprint that should only help his counting stats to further balloon from here on out. While Eddie Rosario and Eduardo Escobar have paced the Twins in the early going, a blistering stretch from Max could very well be right around the corner.
