With a three home run game on Monday night, and another last evening, the Twins Max Kepler is now a favorite to win the American League Rookie of the Year Award.
Despite joining the Twins after the season started and for awhile not being a regular, Kepler has hit 15 home runs this year, including seven in his last 15 games. His home run total leads all American League rookies, and a baseball authority predicted yesterday he could finish the season with 25 homers.
Kepler is averaging a home run every 13.6 at bats. When former Senators and Twins great Harmon Killebrew played his first full season in the majors in 1959 he homered every 13 at bats.
Kepler’s home run totals have probably surprised everyone. In six minor league seasons through 2015 he homered every 46.8 times at the plate. His minor league batting average was .281.
“He’s got that kind of bat that he’s going to hit for average and show a little power,” former Twins executive Jim Rantz told Sports Headliners back in April.
Turns out Kepler is showing more than a “little power” with his line drives that are going over the fence and positioning him to possibly become the sixth Twins player to win the American League Rookie of the Year Award. The 6-4, 207-pound Twins right fielder is impressive at bat with a leveraged swing and exceptional plate discipline. He is hitting .259 with 46 RBI in 205 at bats with the Twins.
“We all thought that he was probably going to be a line drive type hitter that was going to put a lot of doubles up,” Rantz told Sports Headliners yesterday. “It’s a beautiful swing that he puts on the ball…(and) if he gets elevation, it’s going to go because when he hits a ball it carries.”
The German-born Kepler comes from an athletic family. His parents were ballet dancers. As a youngster Kepler played not only baseball but other sports including soccer, swimming, skiing and tennis. Mark Rozycki and Mary Kepler may also have raised the next AL Rookie of the Year.
“No telling how this is going to finish if he keeps going like he’s going,” Rantz said.“He’s liable to hit 25 before it’s over (the season).”
Worth Noting
Vikings owners and brothers Mark and Zygi Wilf didn’t attend yesterday’s groundbreaking event for a new privately funded practice facility and team headquarters in Eagan because their father is ill, a source told Sports Headliners. Leonard Wilf, Mark and Zygi’s cousin and another Vikings owner, represented the Wilf family.
General manager Rick Spielman, speaking at the event, predicted the new complex will be the most “unique and best” of its kind in the NFL. The 40-acre Vikings campus will have offices, a 100-yard indoor practice building and four outdoor fields including a 6,000 seat stadium that is likely to host premiere high school games.
While there’s been no announcement, it seems likely the Vikings eventually will move their preseason training camp from Mankato to Eagan. The new complex will be known as the Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center and TCO Stadium. It is scheduled to open in March of 2018.
Steve Poppen, the Vikings chief financial officer, said Eagan was “clearly” the best of three sites considered. Eagan mayor Mike Maguire said before the Vikings’ headquarters was built in Eden Prairie, the Eagan site had been promoted by a St. Paul developer in the 1970s.
Twins’ right-hander Tommy Milone, who this week was assigned to the bullpen, pitched five-plus innings in four of his last five starts after not achieving that in any of his first six starts this season. Milone hasn’t walked a batter in his last two starts.
Rob Antony, the Twins assistant general manager who could be a finalist to succeed Terry Ryan as the franchise’s baseball boss, started out in the media relations department. So, too, did Twins president Dave St. Peter and director of travel Mike Herman. The organization has long been known for its loyalty to employees and for promoting from within.
The Gophers open preseason football practice Friday. Saturday’s 10 a.m. practice at the Gibson Nagurski Football Complex is open to the public.
Former Gophers coach Glen Mason compared Minnesota senior quarterback Mitch Leidner to a 10-handicap golfer last week while doing analysis on the Big Ten Network. Mason said a 10-handicapper is inconsistent and Leidner needs to more like a five-handicapper.
Gophers coach Tracy Claeys told reporters at last week’s Big Ten media days in Chicago it will be important for he and new offensive coordinator Jay Johnston to give Leidner assignments that he is comfortable with during August practices.
A lot of college football programs, including the Gophers, are discounting tickets to boost sales. Big Ten rival Purdue has single game tickets starting at $5.
The U.S. Olympic women’s basketball team, with four Lynx players and Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve on the staff, has its first game in Rio de Janeiro Sunday. The U.S. team, favored to win gold, plays its opening game against Senegal starting at 10 a.m. CDT.
Vashti Cunningham, the 18-year-old daughter of former Vikings quarterback Randall Cunningham, isn’t expected to win the high jump in Rio but could surprise, and the Nevada native has already put Olympic coaches on notice she is a special talent.
Hamline has hired ex-Gophers women’s tennis star Julia Courter as its new head men’s and women’s tennis coach. The Pipers now have four former Gophers as head coaches with the others being Becky Bauer Egan (volleyball), Natalie Darwitz (women’s hockey) and Cory Laylin (men’s hockey).