Keppinger has gotten off to a horrific start, but the good news is that he’s beginning to break out of it. In his last 3 games, he has gone 2 for 4 each time, raising his batting average from .153 to .202. But there’s still plenty of reason for concern. Kepppinger is showing no plate discipline at all, with his batting average higher than his on-base percentage as he hasn’t walked or gotten hit by a pitch but has 2 sac flies. You have to think that this won’t persist, but as it stands right now, Keppinger is the 21st player, the first since Midre Cummings in 1996, to have a greater batting average than OBP after 85 plate appearances. He’s just the sixth non-pitcher. And that lack of selectivity hasn’t just affected Keppinger’s ability to hit the ball with any authority as his isolated power is just .024. He’s actually hitting a lot of line drives, 29% of his batted balls compared to the 21% league average, but his BAbip (batting average on balls in play) on those line drives is just .591, well below the league average of .679. He’s not getting any hits on groundballs either, managing just a .133 BAbip compared to the .223 average, and he doesn’t have a single hit on a flyball all year, obviously below the .103 league BAbip. On the whole, Keppinger’s BAbip is just .221, well below the .292 league average. Maybe he’s coming around now, but didn’t it seem like at the beginning of the year, Keppinger had just completely fallen apart? Don’t all those difference in BAbip seem so significant? In fact, they’re not.

The probability of Keppinger managing a BAbip as low he did on line drives was actually .188, a little less likely than 1 in 5, something that’s well within the range of normal. For groundballs, the probability was .098, less likely but also not a significant value. On flyballs, we have our first significant p-value (probability value) at .045, and that’s something that we can attempt to explain because when non-power hitters hit too many flyballs, the results are not good, even if they’re certainly due for more than the zero hits Keppinger has gotten. And overall on the year, Keppinger’s BAbip of .221 isn’t significantly lower than the league average, coming in at a p-value of .085. What does all of this tell us? On the whole, Jeff Keppinger has really just been a victim of terribly bad luck, and that’s what has torn apart the rest of his game.

In the face of Keppinger’s improbable breakout in 2012, his struggles to begin 2013 are very funny from a statistical perspective. It can be viewed as a regression to the mean, an extreme value above what we would expect being canceled out by an extreme value going the other way. But regression to the mean isn’t quite that magical and that convenient, and the big statistical point here is something different. There’s a concept in statistics that if you run enough statistical tests, some are going to be significant by chance alone. If you think of every player in baseball as a statistical test, it’s clear that some of them are going to have breakout years or disastrous ones simply because of luck. When a player does have one of those years, it’s up to teams to figure out whether it was because of a real breakthrough or decline or just a case of fortune playing games with us. And if you want to assess whether a player has really broken through, sometimes the stats don’t tell the entire story–watch him play and see if anything really has changed.

The case of Keppinger demonstrates just how crazy luck can be and that we should remain levelheaded both when players are doing surprisingly well or suspiciously not. Sometimes, for reasons out of our control, a player like Keppinger can have a shocking breakout year, and we just have to realize that the supposed breakthrough may not be real. Rays fans wish Keppinger nothing but the best for Keppinger over the next three years (except, of course, when he plays the Rays). But even while we basked in the glory of his 2012 season with the Rays, we can acknowledge that he was not nearly as good as he played and that maybe he just got lucky. We can also be confident, though, that Keppinger is substantially better than he has played in the early goings of 2013 and that his numbers by the end of this year will indicate that. Even if he won’t be a star for the White Sox like he was during his brief time with the Rays, Keppinger can at least be a solid player like he has been most of his career. A great season last year and a tough start to this year doesn’t change that one bit.

The starting rotation for the Rays in 2012 saw Niemann go down early, but wound up being among the best in baseball yet again thanks to a Cy Young season by David Price, a big second half by James Shields, Jeremy Hellickson’s near-repeat of his 2011 Rookie of the Year campaign, a strong season by Alex Cobb, an inconsistent but overall promising season by Moore, and a surprise contribution from Chris Archer. The bullpen was even better, with Fernando Rodney delivering a historic season with the dynamic trio of Joel Peralta, Jake McGee, and Wade Davis working in front of him and J.P. Howell and Burke Badenhop completing easily the best bullpen in baseball. The offense, though, completely fell apart. Everything was a dream in April with Longoria and Pena putting up huge seasons in the middle of the Rays lineup, but then Longoria got hurt again, not to return until August, and Pena fell apart. Even as Jeff Keppinger stepped up to deliver a huge season and B.J. Upton carried the team on his back for the last month and half of the year, injuries to Longoria, Scott, Matthew Joyce, Keppinger, and Desmond Jennings along with completely ineptitude at the shortstop position until Ben Zobrist moved there in August made the Rays one of the worst offensive teams in baseball. Even defensively, the Rays infield defense was their worst since 2007, with Elliot Johnson, Sean Rodriguez, and the countless waiver-claimed utility players that the Rays acquired failing to make enough of the routine plays, costing the Rays far too often in the middle of the year. At the end of the year, the excellence of the Rays’ pitching to go along with strong finishes by the offense and defense led to a third straight 90-win season. However, as the season came to a close, the Rays could only contemplate what could have been. They missed the 2012 Postseason and let everything they had achieved and all the perseverance they had exhibited go to waste.

What did the Rays learn from 2012? They saw firsthand that although pitching reigns supreme, it couldn’t compensate for the other gaping holes in their ballclub. They realized that although signing hitters off the scrapheap was always going to be a critical piece of the way they ran their ballclub, they had to take the chances necessary for them to significantly improve their offense and not let their pitching go for nought. They showed an understanding of both of those things in one foul swoop when they acquired a package of prospects headlined by top outfield prospect Wil Myers from the Kansas City Royals for James Shields and Wade Davis. The Rays have plenty more to do before they’re ready for a promising 2013 MLB season. They have to find themselves a designated hitter and a couple more arms for the bullpen. They have to come up with a plan to keep Evan Longoria healthy and figure out the pitchers who will be in their starting rotation. But now, as 2013 begins, all the potential is there for the Rays to finally live up to their potential and deliver the championship that has eluded them in the first 15 years of their history. They have the ability to make 2013 the season that 2012 could not be. Despite all the positives, 2012 was a major letdown for the Rays and their fans. 2013, though, has every chance to be a completely different story.

Outfielder Nate Schierholtz signed with the Cubs on a 1-year, 2.25 million dollar contract yesterday, but as it turned out, he came very close to being a Ray. Jerry Crasnick of ESPN tweeted that the Rays finished a close second to the Cubs in pursuit of Schierholtz. Schierholtz, who will turn 29 in February, posting a .257/.321/.407 line (104 OPS+) with 8 doubles, 5 triples, 6 homers, and 21 RBI in 114 games but just 269 plate appearances. Schierholtz is a left-hand hitting right fielder with some power and great defense (9.2 UZR/150 in right field in 2724 innings), and he’s great against right-handed pitching, managing a .280/.360/.466 line (120 sOPS+) with all 6 of his home runs and a .266/.319/.413 line for his career. Schierholtz doesn’t have a major career platoon split, posting a .732 OPS versus right-handers and a .708 OPS against lefties but there was a major difference in 2012 as his OPS against lefties was just .444 (38 OPS+) just over half his .832 OPS against righties. Schierholtz could have been a platoon partner with former Cubs prospect Brandon Guyer in right field- but Guyer hit absolutely fine against righties at Triple-A, managing an .860 OPS (although that was lower than his .975 mark against lefties), and although Guyer is completely unproven in the big leagues, it doesn’t make much sense for the Rays to platoon him before they even get a sense of what kind of big league player he’ll be, and signing Schierholtz would likely force them to do that because of his struggles versus lefties. And if Guyer did hit well versus pitchers from both sides, what would the Rays do with Schierholtz? But the major reason Schierholtz did not sign with the Rays was because they acquired Yunel Escobar and suddenly outfield was not such a major need for them anymore because Escobar playing shortstop allows Ben Zobrist to potentially hold down an outfield spot, and from Schierholtz’s standpoint, he was not going to get as much playing time. The Rays chose Escobar over Schierholtz, a move that certainly makes sense as Escobar is a solid starting shortstop while Schierholtz is a platoon outfielder. Schierholtz could have been a solid fit for the Rays, but the Rays found a better alternative to make the signing not work out and good luck to him in Chicago.

Speaking of Chicago, Jeff Keppinger‘s departure from the Rays is official as he turned his huge season with the Rays in 2011 into a 3-year, 13 million dollar contract with the other team in Chicago, the White Sox. There were rumors that Keppinger would be heading to the Yankees and that would have been frustrating for Rays fans, but thankfully he got his long-term deal somewhere else and now Rays fans can wish him nothing but the best (except for when he’s playing the Rays).

Finally, Jon Paul Morosi of Fox Sports sent out an interesting tweet yesterday.

Sources tell me and @jonmorosi that #Royals may be at critical stage in decision on whether to trade Myers for an SP such as #Rays’ Shields.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 6, 2012

To clarify, nothing is happening on the trade front between the Rays and Royals at the moment, but the Royals are making an internal decision about whether it makes sense for them to trade promising outfield prospect Wil Myers for a frontline starting pitchers such as the Rays’ James Shields. Myers would be a major acquisition for the Rays, and if the Royals offer Myers and another good prospect or two for Shields, it would be awfully hard for them not to accept. We’re going to have to stay tuned to see what the Royals decide and what eventually transpires.