Cleveland Indians: The Renaissance of Jason Kipnis

Mandatory Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

The Cleveland Indians’ Jason Kipnis of 2015 Was a Different Player

It goes without saying that the Cleveland Indians‘ Jason Kipnis had a great year in 2015. Hundreds of pundits have written this before, and many more will write about it in the future. Instead of simply regurgitating the truth, this article will look a little deeper. In fact, if one takes a peek below the surface, then it quickly becomes apparent that Jason Kipnis was an entirely different player in 2015 than in prior seasons.

To show this fact, I will look at several underlying factors that led to his success. Today, instead of marveling at how Kipnis turned a dismal 2014 into a fantastic 2015, we will look at how he did that with a bit of an analytical twist.

Let’s start by taking a look at a few rate statistics across his career. K% refers to strikeout rate, which one calculates as the percent of plate appearances that ended in a strikeout. O-Contact% is the percent of swings at pitches outside the strike zone on which Kipnis made contact, and Hard% is the percent of batted balls that were hit hard.

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Well, there are a few things that we can pull from that table. First, Kipnis reduced the number of times that he struck out from 2013 to 2015. While reducing strikeouts is important to long-term success, Kipnis’ 2012 season was nothing special from an offensive viewpoint. Even further, many prominent baseball players have high strikeout rates, but they typically offset this fact by hitting lots of home runs.

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As a bit of a follow up on strikeout rate, Kipnis’ contact on pitches outside the strike zone has a very clear trend. Each season, Kipnis has put the bat on the ball with pitches outside the zone more frequently than the preceding season. Again, 2012 is the exception to the rule.

Finally, let’s look at how frequently Kipnis hit the ball hard. This statistic is a little finicky because it is calculated by outcomes instead of being measured directly. The reason why I tossed this in there is because it shows that, once again, Kipnis simply returned to something that he did before. In 2013, a season in which he had just as much offensive success as last year, Kipnis hit the ball harder than any other season. This is notable since his strikeouts jumped and his O-Contact% dropped.

Could 2014’s failure have been an over-correction to this fact?

While this question is pure speculation, it is not hard to believe. It seems perfectly reasonable that Kipnis tried to reign in his strikeouts by making more contact with the baseball, and, thus, he made more contact on outside pitches by sacrificing bat speed. Rather than swinging blindly, he would swing more gently to ensure that he hit the ball. Considering that he did not cut down on swings outside the strike zone, in fact, he swung at more pitches, this idea has some plausibility to me.

Besides returning to a prior level of performance as with the three statistics listed above, Jason Kipnis made a transformation to complete his renaissance.

Next: How Else did Jason Kipnis Transform?

Mandatory Credit: John Rieger-USA TODAY Sports

Conclusion:

2015 was a fantastic year for Jason Kipnis. He completely changed his approach, and, as a result, he hit more doubles and triples than ever before. Even further, his changes towards a contact-oriented strategy, fueled by more opposite-field hits and line drives, increased his batting average to compensate for his decreased home-run-hitting abilities.

Whether or not these changes will transition to 2016 remains to be seen, and early projections from Steamer did not believe in his changes. Released just about a week ago, they predicted a return to league-average performance with a reversal of the aforementioned switches. These projections believe that the changes that Kipnis made were not sustainable, and they think that he will regress towards his average.

While I usually agree with projections, this time I must disagree. I believe in the Renaissance of Jason Kipnis.

Next: 2015 Season Review: Corey Kluber