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During his first season with the Detroit Tigers, second baseman Ian Kinsler was one of the club’s most valuable players last year, posting a 5.1 fWAR which tied Miguel Cabrera for the team-high among position players. Although Kinsler got off to another good start in 2015, he now finds himself mired in the midst of a major slump.
Since May 20, Kinsler is slashing an anemic .098/.164/.196 over 55 plate appearances. Over that same stretch, the Tigers have gone 5-9 and now find themselves sitting four games out of first place in the AL Central.
In an attempt to shake things up, manager Brad Ausmus even dropped Kinsler from the No. 2 spot to the five-hole recently, but he has gone 0-for-8 since the switch. It is only a two-game sample size, but it would suffice to say that the experiment hasn’t worked yet.
While Kinsler doesn’t strike out very frequently and still possesses a well-below-league-average 12.4 percent K rate, he is struggling to make solid contact. According to Fangraphs, only 22.8 percent of the balls that Kinsler has put into play this season have been hit hard, which ranks 76th out of 90 qualified hitters in the AL. Right now, he doesn’t seem to have the same type of pop in his bat that he once did.
Sure, Kinsler’s lack of power wasn’t much of an issue earlier on in the season when he was getting a lot of base hits, but the fact that it is now June and he has only hit one home run to go along with a lowly .092 ISO is fairly alarming. After all, he hit 17 homers last year and was twice a 30-30 man during his tenure with the Texas Rangers.
Of course, it is also important to remember that Kinsler faded mightily after a strong first half last season, hitting only .239/.270/.357 after the All-Star break and then putting up a .083/.154/.083 triple-slash against the Baltimore Orioles in the 2014 ALDS. Perhaps that was a sign of what was to come.
Soon to celebrate his 33rd birthday, it is possible that Kinsler’s offensive skills are starting to decline, and his current struggles at the plate may be more than just a typical slump. That being said, the Tigers still need to get more out of him than what they have been getting lately.
Brad Faber is a Senior Writer and Sabermetrics Columnist for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @Brad_Faber, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on LinkedIn or Google.
