Max Kepler's tenure with the Philadelphia Phillies was sort of a comedy of errors. Sure, he hit 18 home runs and played a passable left field, but he posted an .691 OPS and 90 wRC+ en route to the worst season of his career by fWAR (0.6). It's been a notable Dave Dombrowski mistake, which fans made note of after Adolis Garcia's horrible start with the team in 2026.
Then, despite that downturn in performance, he was slapped with an 80-game suspension over the offseason for using performance-enhancing drugs, which clearly did not work as intended.
Naturally, he's lingered on the free-agent market ever since, waiting for a team to be desperate enough to take a chance on him. It looks like that time finally came, as the Arizona Diamondbacks have signed Kepler to a one-year deal for the remainder of the 2026 season.
Despite not being on an active roster since being suspended, Kepler has technically been serving out his punishment as an active player. Thus, he's eligible to return on June 25, meaning he'll only miss about 15 games while hanging out on the D-backs' restricted list.
Diamondbacks sign Max Kepler, who is in the midst of serving an 80 game PED suspension pic.twitter.com/vOy8RKhMgl
— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) June 8, 2026
Max Kepler's return to baseball could have bizarre importance for Phillies' playoff hunt
While Kepler was a $10 million disappointment in Philadelphia, he does have 179 home runs and a career .749 OPS under his belt. There's a chance, however slim, that he could be an important piece of the Diamondbacks down the stretch.
In a literal sense, that matters because the Phillies and Diamondbacks are two of the top contenders for NL Wild Card this year. In fact, there's a decent chance they'll end up playing each other in the first round of the playoffs in the 4-5 matchup.
The two teams — both of whom rank in the top 10 in FanSided's lastest power rankings — are also slated to play against each other at the start of September in Arizona, giving Kepler one guaranteed chance to get "revenge" on his old team (should he stick around that long). That revenge would be served lukewarm at best seeing as he earned a pretty penny with the Phillies (but he did say that he wanted to return at the start of the offseason, for what that's worth).
For their sake, the D-backs shouldn't learn to become too reliant on Kepler; even though he can return at the end of June, he's ineligible for the postseason due to his suspension. In effect, this move is purely about trying to climb the standings before October.
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