Minnesota Twins right fielder Max Kepler has been on an absolute tear recently. The 23-year-old rookie has put up four homers and eight RBI over the past two games, reaching base 8-of-11 times he's stepped to the plate in the process.
Coming off a three homer, six-RBI performance against the Cleveland Indians on Monday, Kepler followed that up with knocking another one out of the park Tuesday against the very same Indians. This has him in some rare company as it relates to Twins history.
We fully understand averaging two homers per game isn't sustainable over the long term, but is Kepler's fantasy production going to decline as the season progresses? That's the biggest question right now.
Prior to his previous two games, the Germany-born outfielder had hit safely in eight of his past nine games and 12 of 14 overall. During that 14-game stretch, Kepler posted a .280 batting average with a .360 on-base percentage.
Despite hitting just .259 on the year, the rookie has still found a way to post a .342 OBP and .903 OPS in 63 games. His strikeout rate stands at a solid 23 percent while he's walking over 11 percent of the time he steps to the plate. Those are some seriously good splits.
Though, there is a major concern here. The lefty is struggling in both the power and batting average categories against like pitchers.
2016 Splits | Pitcher | At-Bats | AVG | HR | RBI | K-Rate |
| Righties | 133 | .278 | 13 | 36 | 20.3 |
| Lefties | 72 | .222 | 2 | 10 | 29.2 |
From a DFS perspective, these splits tell us a story of a player that should only be counted on against right-handed pitchers, at least until he gets more comfortable against lefties.
What we do know is that Kepler's overall performance isn't an outlier from what we saw in the minors. Here's a guy that his .318 with nine homers and 71 RBI in Double-A a season ago. He also walked more than he struck out — a good indication no matter what level a prospect is playing in.
The only outlier here is homers. Kepler has already hit four more homers in the Majors this season than he did in double the amount of at-bats in the minors last year. That's probably the biggest takeaway here. While we can continue to expect him to get on base, acting as a DFS stud in the process, his power numbers will surely take a hit moving forward.