It was almost exactly one year ago when the Arizona Diamondbacks told Kevin Jepsen that he would not be making the big-league club. 2016 had been a disaster—first in Minnesota, and then in Tampa Bay—and he had only pitched in a handful of 2017 Spring Training games due to a quad injury, and the team wanted him to return on a minor-league deal and pitch for the Reno Aces.
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Instead, Jepsen went camping.
“I knew that if I had gone to Reno, it wasn’t going to be a long stint with the way my body felt,” Jepsen explains. He needed time to think about whether he still had the drive to play baseball, or if it was time for something else. Jepsen and his wife loaded up their 41-foot Fifth Wheel travel trailer and got the heck out of Dodge. “We went to Santa Barbara, camped on the beach for a week,” Jepsen says. Then they went to Happy Jack, in the Coconino National Forest, just south of Flagstaff, Arizona. But after they got home, the decision became clear: “After the trip stops, you’re just… home,” Jepsen says. “Like… ‘I gotta get out of the house! I gotta do something.”
So, baseball it was. He rehabbed his arm, and by late June of 2017, he threw a showcase for a few teams. The Nationals signed him and sent him to West Palm Beach to throw live batting practice to Jayson Werth, who was recovering from a broken foot.
“He’s coming back from a broken foot, I’m throwing at 8:30 in the morning,” Jepsen says. “There are no radar guns out there, so I feel like it’s back?” But with no radar guns in West Palm Beach, and with Jayson Werth still rusty himself, Jepsen says he didn’t know for sure if he was pitching well or not until he got to Syracuse.
“Not”, it turns out.
Jepsen gave up a run in his first appearance. Then four in his second appearance, one in which he didn’t record a single out. Then another four. By the end of his sixth appearance, he had allowed fourteen runs in 7 1/3 innings.
“I got my butt kicked,” Jepsen says, then emphasizes: “…BAD.”
The arm felt fine, the quad was healed… “I should be throwing as good as I possibly can right now, right? With all the time off, I feel fresh, (but) just wasn’t there.” Jepsen began to wonder again if this was the end of the road.
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Enter Spencer Kieboom.
Jepsen and the Syracuse Chiefs were in Pawtucket, and Jepsen was throwing the worst bullpen of his life.
“All I threw was fastballs, and I didn’t throw a single one over the plate,” Jepsen recalls. “All I’m trying to do is just throw it hard. Get the velo back, and everything else will come. (But) I could not throw, I mean, I was having trouble hitting the catcher.”
That catcher was Kieboom, and as the two walked back to the clubhouse, Jepsen was venting. “I feel strong when my legs lift,” he said. “But as soon as I start going down the mound, the energy…” he trails off.
The explanation flipped a switch in Kieboom’s head and he made a suggestion. He recalled another Syracuse pitcher who had complained of the same issue, and fixed it when he moved to another team by focusing on his landing foot. “They noticed he was stepping onto his toes,” Kieboom told him. “They went back and looked (at the film), and he used to reach out with his heel.”
Jepsen went back into the clubhouse and tried landing on his heel, rather than his foot. It felt pretty good. The motion allowed him to carry his momentum further towards home plate, whereas landing on his toes was like hitting resistance that slowed him down.
That night, Jepsen struck out two and allowed only one hit. No runs.
The next night, no runs.
In fact, in the fourteen games after making the adjustment, twelve of them were scoreless outings. Jepsen’s ERA was 1.47 after that bullpen session. He elected free agency in November, and by December 14th, he was signing a contract with the Rangers as a non-roster invitee to Spring Training.
He has a 0.96 ERA in Cactus League play this year, notching 8 strikeouts and zero walks.
He has not yet been added to the 40-man roster, and—much like last year’s process in Diamondbacks camp—he has an opt-out coming up. I asked him if he had made up his mind whether he would pitch in the minor leagues and await an opportunity if that’s what it came down to.
He shrugged and smiled. “I don’t plan on going camping.”
