My Two Cents: Kevin Kiermaier, Fresh Off Hip Surgery, Says 'I'll Be Back,' But Will He?
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Kevin Kiermaier returned home to Tampa on Thursday night, fresh off of hip surgery in Nashville, Tenn. The surgery, to repair the labrum in his left hip, has knocked him out for the season.
Kiermaier posted a one-minute video on Twitter Friday, updating his health, and thanking the fans for all of the support during his decade here in Tampa Bay. He also said this:
"I will be back on that field next year, better than ever.''
But will he?
Quick post surgery update! Thank you @RaysBaseball fans and everyone else who has reached out wishin me the best! pic.twitter.com/pwM6lRsF1s
— Kevin Kiermaier (@KKiermaier39) August 5, 2022
Here's what Kiermaier said in his Twitter post on Friday:
"Hello everybody, I'm back in beautiful Tampa, Florida, right where I belong. The surgery was great the other day. I'm feeling great right now and I have to grind through this rehab.
"I love a good challenge and I will dominate this. I am so excited about the thought of being healthy and moving forward. It has been an absolute grind with what I've played with this last year and a half and I just want to let everyone know that I will be OK and I will be back on that baseball field next year. I am a happy man and life is good.
"I cannot thank everyone enough for the support. Last night, flying back to Tampa, everyone coming up to me wishing me the best with my hip and my recovery means the world to me. That's why I love this city, this community, everything about here. Everyone here in the Tampa Bay area has treated me great since Day 1. I will be back on that field next year, better than ever. Thank you for the support.''
Kiermaier has been a fan favorite in Tampa Bay for years, a true success story. He was picked in the 31st round of the 2010 MLB draft — not usually a round for finding major-league players — and he joined the Rays at the very end of the 2013 season. He became a regular in 2014 and has been starting ever since, growing into one of the best defensive center fielders in the game. He's won three Gold Gloves, in 2015, 2016 and 2019.
Kiermaier signed an escalating six-year, $53.5 million contract in 2017, and he's making $12 million in 2022. He's the highest-paid player on the Rays this season.
Now here's where it gets interesting. The Rays have a team option for 2023, one that would pay Kiermaier $13 million. Kiermaier has been very clear all year in saying he doesn't want to play anywhere else.
But do the Rays really want him? Probably not at $13 million, which means there may need to be some conversations between the two sides.
Or maybe the Rays just say goodbye. That's very much an option, too.
Can you imagine?
What's the plan for 2023?
All indications are the Kiermaier's hip surgery went well and no one doubts that he'll put in the work to be ready by spring training. He has fought through hip pain for two seasons now, and it was a huge relief getting the surgery done.
Kiermaier, who will turn 33 next April, said he will be ''back on that field next year, better than ever.'' That field, in his mind, is Tropicana Field. He absolutely wants to end his career with the Rays, whenever that may be.
He played in 63 games this season, batting .228 with seven home runs and 22 RBIs. He played his last game on July 9 in Cincinnati, his hip too sore to continue, even after a cortisone shot and 10 days on the injured list in late June.
What makes all of this so interesting is that the Rays didn't get any production out of the center field spot when Kiermaier was down. Brett Phillips his .147 before getting shipped out at the trade deadline, landing in Baltimore. Jose Lowe was making progress — he hit safely in his last seven games — but he was hitting under .200 most of the season before that last 9-for-22 run.
The Rays' front office, which will make the final call on that $13 million option for Kiermaier, has worked hard to try to replace him. They signed Roman Quinn off the scrap heap and traded with Houston for Jose Siri, giving up a couple of minor-league pitchers.
There's a lot of doubt over whether either can be Kiermaier's long-term successor. Quinn isn't it, and Siri has plenty of potential — and confidence in himself. But he's also 27 years old and hasn't really done anything yet. He played 21 games for Houston last year, hitting. 304 with four home runs in 46 at-bats.
But he struggled mightily this year and the Astros gave up on him quickly. He played 48 games and hit only .178, striking out 48 times in 135 at-bats. He's just 2-for-11 so far with the Rays, a sample size far too small to make any assessment.
But what Siri does in the last two months of the season is an absolute dress rehearsal for him. And the front office is watching closely. Very, very closely.
Kiermaier's clubhouse impact
There is no doubt that Kiermaier was the leader of this Rays' team. He was the man in the middle of every postgame locker room celebration, and he was the big brother to a lot of Tampa Bay's younger players.
Back in April, they all loved watching the interaction between Kiermaier and his brother Dan, who's the head groundskeeper at Wrigley Field for the Chicago Cubs. The Rays played three games there, and Kiermaier family stories were fun to tell.
When they came home the following week, Kiermaier hit a game-winning home run against the Boston Red Sox, the first walk-off homer of his career. His teammates reveled in the celebration, because it was KK, and they were thrilled for him.
"When I first came over here, KK took the time to explain how things were done over here, and took the time to give me information on how they operated. Since then, he's been an unbelievable teammate and unbelievable leader and I have learned so much. from that man on how he goes about his business on and off the field,'' fellow outfielder Brett Phillips said a few months ago.
"What he's done for this team cannot be measured. He's he guy I want to try to be. There's way more to a winning player than just a batting average and KK proves that. I've learned a lot and respect that hell out of him. He does a great job of leading and communicating with everyone, and that's super valuable in this locker room. When he hit that homer, man, it made me so happy too. You want the best for guys like that. We want to let him know, dude, you're the captain, you're the best. We don't accomplish everything we've done in the last couple of years without him. He's done so much for the Tampa Bay Rays.''
He sure has.
I talked with Rays general manager Peter Bendix for a trade deadline story right after Kiermaier got hurt. He didn't want to talk about Kiermaier's future at the time, and they're probably not going to have any more conversations in public until after the season, too.
Money always has to be a factor with the Rays, so the reality is that $13 million is a lot of money. But it's also easy to argue that Kiermaier has earned that extra year, if only for his importance as a leader.
It would be nice for the Rays to just act now and pull the trigger on that option. It would certainly mean a lot for team morale, and for looking ahead.
But we also know how the Rays operate, and there is no page on ''meritorious service'' in the manual.
From a personal standpoint, I'd love to see Kiermaier back. Sure, he's great with the media, but he's also the only other fellow Hoosier in the Rays locker room. We have as many college basketball talks as we do about baseball. He's a loyal Purdue fan, through and through.
He's still got plenty of gas in the tank, too. Back at 100 percent in the spring, he can still help the Rays win games. He can absolutely still be that leader in the clubhouse.
His comments on Friday were the first salvo over the bow in what comes next. It was Kiermaier who struck first, talking about being ''on that field'' in 2023. Will he?
It's going to be interesting to see how it all plays out.
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Tom Brew is the publisher of Inside The Rays, and has been with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation network for three years. He is an award-winning writer and editor who has spent most of his four-decade career at the Tampa Bay Times, Indianapolis Star and South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He has written four books.