KIPNIS TRAVELED UNUSUAL PATH
All-Star second baseman’s rise followed stint as obscure college outfielder
CINCINNATI When No. 1 Vanderbilt visited No. 19 Kentucky in April 2007, it was no ordinary baseball series. It wasn’t just a meeting of top-20 schools.
An unsuspecting redshirt freshman would make a lasting impression in what he didn’t know was a tryout of sorts.
At the time, Jason Kipnis — now a two-time All-Star second baseman for the Cleveland Indians — had a partial scholarship to Kentucky that barely covered the cost of his textbooks. The coaches redshirted him because they didn’t think he was ready to play.
There was no way of knowing that the eight at-bats he had against Vanderbilt would have such a great impact on his baseball career, especially considering that he went 1-for-8. (Vanderbilt pitcher David Price said he didn’t remember the matchup or even that Kipnis went to Kentucky before later transferring. “Are you serious?” Price asked.)
That year at Kentucky — and that series vs. Vanderbilt — helped pave the way for success at Arizona State and in the pros. With the help of a tweak of his hitting mechanics, Kipnis leads the majors with 27 doubles and has 112 hits, a .323 average and a .401 on-base percentage, all among the American League’s top four.
“The difference for me is that I’ve got my hands in a different position,” Kipnis said. “It took a long time for me in years past for me to get into my load position, so I’m kind of trying to start them there. It’s allowing me to let the ball (to) travel a little farther, see the ball a little bit longer and let the pitch tell me what it’s going to do rather than trying to anticipate it.”
“He’s tough,” Price said of modern-day Kipnis. “He’s swinging the bat really well and definitely deserves to be an All-Star.”
In that long-ago Southeastern Conference series, left-handedhitting Kipnis started vs. lefties Price and Mike Minor. Kipnis singled to left-center field and walked off Price before going hitless the rest of the series.
After butting heads with Kentucky coaches that season, Kipnis looked to transfer.
“I was real immature back then,” he said.
Kipnis scoured online rosters of warm-weather schools whose outfields were likely to have a vacancies. “I almost sent the one to ASU as a joke,” he said, “thinking there was no chance I would get a response.”
When it reached coach Pat Murphy’s staff members at annual powerhouse Arizona State, they did some background research and decided Kipnis was an intriguing recruit. Murphy then called several SEC coaches.
“I remember telling Murph he was fast-twitch,” Vanderbilt manager Tim Corbin said. “He was very athletic, and I thought he could play.”
“Some were favorable. Some weren’t,” Murphy said of his informal polling. “But some that I trusted said, ‘Hey, this might be worth something.’ I trusted Corbs as much as anyone.”
As Kipnis became a Sun Devil, the question was whether he could harness his raw talent.
On a number of nights when he couldn’t sleep, he’d walk over to ASU’s baseball facility, plug in his iPod and turn on the Iron Mike machine to take an hour of batting practice.
“You could switch it on, and it’d feed you baseballs for hours,” he said. Kipnis would work on individual skills, standing accordingly to work on inside pitches or outside pitches, even moving up almost halfway to the machine to increase pitch speed. He called these solo sessions a big piece of his development in learning to become “fastball efficient” — i.e. not missing the most hittable pitches — and, really, “just teach myself how to hit,” he said.
Kipnis was named 2008 Pac-10 newcomer of the year and 2009 Pac-10 player of the year.
“I like that underdog player,” said Murphy, now interim manager of the San Diego Padres. “I like that guy is in a good place in his life that’s ready to make a change and ready to take on some discipline and be pushed a little bit. I knew he was ready for that.”
Kipnis’ skill set obviously didn’t transfer to any big-league outfield position, but Murphy believed he could be a productive infielder defensively. The Indians sent a scout to watch Kipnis before a series at Oregon State. A bad back sidelined Kipnis for a game, but, despite the ailment, Murphy arranged for his player to work out in the infield for the scout the next morning.
“They worked him out in the infield and liked what they saw,” Murphy said. “And then he went out and played center field that night.”
Kipnis began his pro career in the outfield in short-season Class A Mahoning Valley (Niles, Ohio) but switched to second base thereafter and hasn’t logged an inning anywhere else for the Indians.
“I hated it at first,” Kipnis said. “I liked the outfield. I was comfortable out there. But they said (second base) would be my quickest way to the big leagues. ”
Cogan praised Kipnis’ hands and his hand-eye coordination, which with time have made him a solid defender. Advanced defensive metrics rank him in the top half of the major league second basemen — but he has a dissenting voice within his family.
Older sister Amanda played college softball at Maryland, and Kipnis said he learned a lot of his work ethic from her, as she was always asking their father to take her to the field to hit her grounders and throw her batting practice.
“To this day, she claims she’s the best second baseman in the family,” Kipnis said.
That’s a bold proclamation after the work Kipnis put in over the winter. After an injuryplagued season, he took a month off — “Just to let the body heal and my mind escape from baseball,” he said — before revamping his workouts, delving deep into boxing and Muay Thai, a form of kickboxing.
Kipnis had a career-high 17 home runs in 2013 but saw his total dip to six in 2014 as his onbase-plus-slugging percentage fell to .640 in the first season of a contract extension worth at least six years and $52.5 million. He has improved that OPS to a career-best .889 this year.
He’s back to his natural swing, using the middle of the field and the opposite way more than in years past. Kipnis concedes that, at times, he wishes he were hitting more home runs.
“I immediately try to push that thought out of my head,” he said, telling himself, “You’re doing fine, keep doing what you’re doing.”
Kipnis has been more than fine; he has become one of baseball’s best.