Cleveland Indians: Fully Healthy, Jason Kipnis Having Nice Comeback Season

Jason Kipnis had an awesome year in 2013. He showed a power-speed combination that is very rare for a second baseman. In 2013, Kipnis hit .284 with 17 homers and 30 steals en route to his first career All-Star Game appearance.

The Indians rewarded him with a six-year, $52.5 million contract extension at the beginning of the 2014 season.

Unfortunately, Kipnis did not continue his stellar play. He struggled mightily last year and ended 2014 with a .240 batting average, the lowest total of his career. Also, an oblique injury sapped most of his power—he hit only six home runs and finished with a wRC+ of only 86, according to FanGraphs.

wRC+ is a sabermetric stat that measures how many runs a player creates adjusted to league and park factors. One hundred is average, so that is a good measure of just how poorly Kipnis hit in 2014.

But 2015 has been a different story for the 28-year-old second baseman from Arizona State.

Through May 15, Kipnis has already amassed 13 extra-base hits (eight doubles, two triples and three homers). Through the same date last year, Kipnis was hitting .234 with nine extra-base hits.

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He did miss several games last year with that nagging oblique injury—so that took away some at bats—but he is just having a much more positive start than he did last year.

Not only is he healthy, but he is also doing something he didn't do a whole lot of last year. He is hitting the ball the other way with regularity.

Craig Edwards of FanGraphs outlined this adjustment in a recent article. In the article, Edwards showed stats that showed Kipnis was rolling over outside pitches—usually resulting in weak ground outs to the right side—but now he is hitting those same pitches to left field with some authority.

"His power to the left side has yet to return, but he is going the other way more often this season," Edwards wrote. "In 2015, Kipnis is pulling fewer pitches, not hitting as many ground balls, and his soft-contact percentage has gone down from last season."

He also continues to contribute on the basepaths. He has been successful on five of seven stolen base attempts, and he has a positive RBaser (Runs from Baserunning), according to Baseball-Reference.

Add it all up and he has been worth 1.8 wins above replacement so far in 2015—per Baseball-Reference—which is good for third among all MLB second basemen. 

Despite his 2014 struggles, Kipnis is hitting much better so far this year and looks like he is on the right track to returning to the player who earned that big contract extension a year ago.