Kipper Snacked, Value Whacked

Kipnis ranked 14th among second basemen in Colonel Sanders’ rankings, ahead of Omar Infante and behind Kolten Wong.

Jason Kipnis came into the season as Rotographs’ No. 1 fantasy second baseman, and in that regard the season was a pretty big disappointment. Well, in virtually every regard Kipnis was a disappointment.

Kipnis hit just .240/.310/.330; among qualified second sackers those marks ranked 16th, 12th and 16th. As a side note: there were only 16 qualified second basemen. Only D.J. LeMahieu and Dee Gordon hit fewer home runs than Kipnis’ six. Arguably Kipnis’ only saving grace was his 22 steals. Only Gordon and Jose Altuve swiped more.

An interesting bit of news shot through the wires in the last week as the Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Terry Pluto reported Kipnis had bulked up to build his strength and hopefully hit more power.

Now that we’ve seen the results, it would seem worth wondering why a player would alter his body chemistry after his finest major league season. Kipnis set career-highs in home runs, each of the triple-slash categories, RBI and tied a career-high for runs. He was also a steal short of matching his 2012 mark of 31. Indeed it does seem odd that a player would look to make changes after that sort of season, but if Kipnis was looking to justify his new contract — six years and $52m per Cot’s — that kicked in this season, that at least provides us with something to go from.

Pluto surmises that the added bulk made Kipnis more slow, not just on the bases but in the field and with the stick. That’s a certain level of correlation-causation that yours truly isn’t entirely comfortable with, but let’s consider it for a second. Kipnis obviously fared worse at the plate. Kipnis’ fielding metrics — for what they’re worth — also took a tumble, though that’s a two-year trend and for all we know may just be noise. Kipnis didn’t strike out more this season; in fact, he struck out less. That would seem to be the chief indicator of a slow bat, at least in my eyes.

Kipnis did hit fewer line drives, but in favor of grounders. He also hit more popups, but not even close to an alarmingly high number. One thing in the batted ball mix we do see is a HR/FB rate that was about one-third what it was the year before (12.4 percent –> 4.8). That doesn’t explain all, or really that much of the decline, but it certainly plays a part.

Interestingly enough, Kipnis saw over 100 more pitches this season to last — and nearly all of them were balls. He saw 1641 strikes in 2013 and 1642 in 2014 despite seeing 118 more pitches total.

One thing Kipnis didn’t do this season was hit the ball to either the push or pull side with authority. As a left-handed hitter, Kipnis hit .327/.323/.388 to left field. If a guy isn’t an opposite-field dynamo like Joe Mauer, that’s not just a decent line the other way, that’s downright solid. But to the pull side Kipnis hit .259/.258/.386, and pulled just 12 extra-base hits. To center Kipnis hit well enough — .326/.326/.458 with 14 extra-base knocks — but this represents a huge decline for Kipnis all across the board.

It turns out Kipnis is a bit like Mauer in that regard. In 2013 Kipnis had a 1.317 OPS and .559 wOBA to left field. But Kipnis did well to spray the ball all around the field, with a .913/.389 mark to center and a .803/.344 mark to right. As I frequently will say I’m no genius, but maybe that — which is, hitting the ball with far less authority to all fields — could be explained with a slower bat?

And what about the injuries that tripped Kipnis up this season? A strained oblique? A recurrence of a hamstring injury that tripped him up in 2011? Either way it’s clear that Cleveland thinks so, and according to Pluto the club has prescribed an offseason regimen based on getting Kipnis more light and flexible, which he has been receptive to.

What we do know is that Kipnis failed to live up to his No. 1 billing, instead checking in 14th in what was a decent crop of second basemen. But at a $5 value fantasy players were obviously better suited looking into their crystal balls for Jose Altuve.

Kipnis has too much talent to ignore regardless of position, and when factoring in that his chief competition at second will be guys like Brian Dozier, Chase Utley and Robinson Cano, it isn’t hard to envision Jason again finding himself in the top three to top five options again on draft day.

If that means a moderately lower price than was paid last year — and why wouldn’t it — he should be well worth the gamble.