White Sox infielder Jeff Keppinger will undergo shoulder surgery

When the Chicago White Sox inked utility man Jeff Keppinger to a 3-year, $12 million deal in the off-season, the reaction of the MLB community was generally positive. After all, he can play multiple positions effectively, and was combing off of a breakout season in which he produced an OPS over .800 over 418 plate appearances with the Tampa Bay Rays.

Unfortunately, it hasn’t been a success story in Chicago for Keppinger in 2013, and his season came to an end with a quick announcement on Tuesday.

It is unclear how long Keppinger will be out with the shoulder issue, but it might explain some his well-publicized struggles this season. In 451 plate appearances, Keppinger has only 4 home runs, and that power outage (combined with a nose-diving walk rate) has led to a .253/.283/.317 slash line. That type of production is pretty ugly anywhere, but Keppinger’s WAR (according to FanGraphs) has spiked to a comically bad -1.6 on the season.

Hopefully for Chicago’s sake, this injury will prove to be the cause of Keppinger’s struggles this season, but at the same time, it would be hard to envision the White Sox handing him a full-time starting role in 2014.