What started out as a highly confusing free agent signing by the Phillies turned into something resembling a disaster at the end of the season. No one really can pinpoint why the team targeted Max Kepler
as a way to spend free agent dollars, but spend they did.
It just didn’t work.
2025 stats:
474 PA, .216/.300/.391, 18 HR, 52 RBI, 19.6 K%, 10.1 BB%, 0.6 fWAR
What went right:
If you dig deep enough and put on the right shade of rose colored glasses, you can find some things that were positive about Kepler’s season.
He hit the ball kind of hard, walked at a good clip and provided at least adequate defense. There was at least a small stretch from August 5 until the end of the season where he was quite good at the plate, posting a .262/.322/.505 line over 118 plate appearances with seven home runs and 18 runs batted in. That’s with a .266 BABIP, suggesting that maybe he was a tad unlucky. The BABIP was something that was a season long malady (.232 clip for the year, which seems impossible), but if you look back at his career, it’s not really out of the ordinary. He whined a bit about playing time, but still posted whenever he was called upon.
It’s a stretch of course to look for things that went right for Kepler, but they are there.
What went wrong:
It’s still kind of confusing what the team saw in Kepler that made them want to sign him in the first place. There weren’t many behind the scenes numbers that suggested he was being hindered by something, though a core surgery was done over the offseason. His 2023 season had some good numbers, both on the back of his baseball card and under the hood, so maybe they were counting on some kind of bounce back season that simply never happened. Even with a lot of those smaller positive spins on his season, they were far outweighed by the disappointing aspects of his year.
It just looks like a waste of $10 million for the season.
The future with the Phillies:
None.
In our group chat amongst all the writers, I actually argued that re-signing Kepler as part of a larger outfield rearrangement actually made some sense. He was actually not a bad defender and with a full season of completely healthy at bats, maybe cheap production could have been had.
Alas, it is not to be. He will be moving on to bigger and better things.
Probably with the Angels.
