Max Kepler has, by any measure, been a huge disappointment for the Philadelphia Phillies so far this season. The front office was banking on the 10-year veteran to bounce back after injuries derailed his 2024. And until very recently, Kepler hadn't returned any value of the $10 million free agent deal he got in the offseason.
After scuffling — even that sounds too generous — through the first four months of the season with a .203/.297/.357, Phillies fans were ready to toss Kepler to the wolves. He was downright dreadful.
If you ventured onto Phillies social media at any point this season, either before, during or after games you could always find some anti-Kepler propaganda. Some of the vitriol stemmed from questionable playing time complaints he made earlier in the season. Some of it was from yet another dismal showing at the plate. Some was just from Kepler looking like another dud in a line of failed free-agent signings by Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.
But as the calendar flipped to August something happened for the left fielder. He found something, somewhere, and has put together a strong showing so far this month. It begs the question: Do Phillies fans owe Max Kepler an apology?
It's too soon for Phillies fans to offer Max Kepler an apology
Through 12 games this month, Kepler is 12-for-40 and slashing a healthy .300/.317/.525 with a pair of home runs, three doubles, seven RBIs and eight runs scored. He has contributed to the lineup's August offensive outburst with a 129 wRC+.
With this recent stretch Kepler has raised his season slash line to .214/.299/.377 with 13 homers, 40 RBIs and 48 runs scored. It's still not much to look, and he likely won't be able to resuscitate his season-long numbers enough in the time remaining this season.
It hasn't even been the entire month that he has been hot, either. It's really been just since Aug. 5 that something clicked for Kepler. He's 12-for-35 in with five extra-base hits in 36 plate appearances over the last two-and-a-half weeks, slashing .343/.361/.600 with the fifth-highest wRC+ (164) on the team. He lasered his 13th home run of the year early in the Phillies' 11-2 rout of the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday.
The problem is, it's an extremely tiny sample size, especially when compared to the first 356 plate appearances of his season.
Max Kepler extends the @Phillies lead with a solo shot 😤 pic.twitter.com/BIXLbb7z78
— MLB (@MLB) August 20, 2025
Many fans had hoped Kepler would be gone by now, but it looks like he's here to stay. Each Phillies fan will have to decide for themselves how to determine when it's appropriate to apologize. It definitely feels too soon to make a formal apology at this time.
But if he continues hitting over the course of the final five-ish weeks of the season? Then we can reconvene and discuss. But he might have to also do something big in the playoffs to really get Phillies fans on his side.
Regardless of how good Kepler has been at the plate in August, fans won't buy in that easily. Hopefully he proves us all wrong.